Let’s not forget the logistical hurdles to a free election

As I have argued in these pages before, the current impasse regarding the firing of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission commissioners is political. The commissioners’ reputation has been irreparably damaged by the Chickengate scandal.

In addition, the latest opinion polls show that large segments of the public — on both sides of the political divide — lack faith in the commissioners, and by extension the IEBC

Meanwhile, the country’s political leadership – largely from the opposition, but also including some Jubilee politicians – has voiced its desire to see the commission restructured. There is no doubt that majority of Kenyans want IEBC reformed. In the minds of most of them, that means firing the current commissioners. Chairman Issack Hassan and his team should do the honourable thing and resign. Kenyans have lost trust in them.

But the IEBC is more than just the commissioners. There is also the secretariat. While we might have political and moral objections to the continued stay of the commissioners, we should not lose sight of the secretariat which needs to lay the groundwork for next year’s elections.

It needs to register voters and make sure all the logistical aspects of running a credible election are in place.

And herein lies some of the ways in which we should be trying to fix the IEBC. For now the focus has purely been on the political aspects of its operations – largely on account of the complete lack of trust on the commissioners.

But focus should also be on the mechanical ways in which we can make next year’s election more credible. Part of the reason why the opposition lacks faith in the IEBC is because of alleged tampering with the vote count after the balloting was completed in 2013 and in the Kericho by-election. So how can we fix this? If we are honest about wanting to conduct a credible presidential election in 2017, here is what we should be investing in.

The IEBC will have roughly about 35,000 polling stations countrywide next year. That means that it should be able to generate a similar number of data points that will contribute to its national tally.

How can we make these observations trustworthy?

The IEBC should solicit for volunteers and agents from the political parties for each polling station. It should not be hard to come up with more than 35,000 volunteers on a public holiday.

Second, these volunteers and agents should be equipped with phones with which they can take pictures of the ballot boxes and the tallying process throughout polling day.

These pictures can then be transmitted over scheduled intervals to both party headquarters and the national tallying center. The same pictures would be time stamped and geo-tagged.

At the end of the day the volunteers and voters would transmit the final tally from each polling station directly to the different political parties and the national tallying center. 35,000 polling stations may sound like a lot, but consider the amount of money the government spends on pens, or the amount that is routinely lost to corrupt officials.

Furthermore, such volunteers would only need a nominal payment for their time on Election Day. The advantage would be to have 35,000 unique data points that are easily verifiable when arriving at the final count. Pulling this off is a logistical possibility, if we really want to do it.

In the same vein, we could invest in a parallel vote tallying system that to relay results to the public alongside the official channel. There should be no fear that the transmission of results will ignite violence. Kenyans are smarter than we often give them credit for.

And so as we grapple with the political aspects of restructuring the IEBC, we should not lose sight of the logistical foundations of a free and fair election next year.