Successful test of IEBC kit should calm nerves over poll outcome

The test-run of the Kenya Elections Integrated System went ahead Wednesday as planned. This was meant to test how the technology will capture and transmit election data from the polling stations. Commendably, the exercise went on smoothly. The exercise had been put off over the death of Chris Msando, an ICT expert at the IEBC. Nevertheless, everything went on without a hitch.

The KIEMS gadget has inbuilt security features that, if all goes according to script, could make next week's exercise Kenya’s cleanest elections. The KIEMS gadgets lack the capacity to download and moreover, each tablet is coded for specific centres and is foolproof. IEBC says KIEMS cannot be hacked into and that they can monitor activities in real time.

The technology deployed, we are told, is only as good as those who manage it and that anything can happen. Indeed it would be foolhardy for us to imagine that nothing could go wrong. It has and it could. It is what is done in that circumstance that will hold back the country from the precipice.

The ignominy of the 2007/2008 post-election violence is still etched in our minds. Then, at least 1,300 Kenyans lost their lives in an orgy of killings and more than 600,000 others were displaced.

The then Electoral Commission of Kenya became the fall guy. Surely, it is not in anybody’s interest that the systems fail: Not for the IEBC who want to demonstrate that it can be a neutral arbiter in what ideally is a contest of ideas; not for NASA or Jubilee who both believe they deserve to be elected into office; not for a public weary about the machinations of a political class keen to self-preserve.

The heaviest burden falls on IEBC, who must go full throttle to clean up its sullied image after 2007 and 2013. It owes it to the 19 million voters to ensure the electronic tallying system is dependable to avoid cries of foul play.

In the 2013 election, the system failed, forcing the electoral officials to manually tally the results. The Opposition contested the results of the presidential elections at the Supreme Court. While it is not wrong to contest, IEBC should save the country anxious moments that come with a contest that ends up in a courtroom. Wednesday’s successful test-run will reassure a country on edge.