Raila Odinga's double registration corrected as woman traced

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) yesterday said it had corrected the anomaly of a double voter registration using CORD leader Raila Odinga's national identity card number.

IEBC officials said they had traced the woman who registered as a voter using Raila's ID number. The anomaly could have seen the CORD leader barred from voting in the August elections - in which he is expected to vie for the presidency.

Raila last week protested that he shared an ID card number with a woman he didn't know, making him a victim of double registration. Similar reports were reported across registration centres in Nyanza region.

IEBC traced the woman to Alego Usonga to change her particulars in order to allow both her and the CORD leader to cast their votes in August.

According to Central Nyanza IEBC co-ordinator George Oyugi, the commission worked hard to find the woman, who had been traced by noon yesterday.

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"We have sorted the matter out and Raila is now free to go and vote. It was a case of just one misplaced number that could have been caused by the ID registration team," he said, adding that the police were on the matter.

Had Raila failed to verify his voter status, he would have been shocked to find himself a victim of double registration, which is an electoral offence.

But even as IEBC acted fast to correct the anomaly, questions remained about the number of Kenyans facing similar challenges. 

Yesterday, it emerged that the names of more than 180 people in Nyando constituency were missing from the elections manual and electronic register.

The voters were shocked by the statistics, which were made public in the presence of IEBC officials, MPs and aspirants from the region.

The leaders had convened a meeting of all aspirants to map out fresh strategies for voter listing when the anomalies were detected.

The IEBC officials admitted the mistakes.