IEBC officials reveal flaws in election of popular Governor

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has admitted that the results used to declare Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o the winner in the August 8 poll were inaccurate.

Four commission officials who took to the witness stand in the case in which former Governor Jack Ranguma is challenging Nyong'o's win, yesterday admitted that there were discrepancies in statutory forms presented before the court.

The county returning officer, John Cox, the Nyakach constituency returning officer, George Jobando, and his Kisumu East counterpart, Yvonne Oketch, and her deputy, Maureen Otili, all agreed that there were omissions which could have dented the accuracy of the results.

But they defended their mistakes, noting they could not have affected the final results as declared at various polling levels.

Loopholes identified

Mr Cox, during cross-examination by Ranguma's lawyer, Richard Onsongo, could not explain the various loopholes identified in the voting process, which included inconsistencies in the results declared in forms 37A, 37B, and 37C.

For example in Kisumu East Constituency, five polling stations had no returns in forms 37C, this even as Ms Otili insisted that she had presented all the fully completed forms 37A and 37B to the county returning officer.

Cox also distanced himself from any inconsistencies reported in the forms transmitted through the KIEMs system against the physical forms he used to declare the results, saying his mandate was purely limited to the physical forms.

Otili could not explain why the votes cast were more that the registered voters in a polling station at Mamboleo Market.

“The Form 37A indicates 530 as the registered number of voters, while valid votes cast are 530 and three are rejected. Can you account for this?” asked Onsongo. The hearing of the case continues today.