Protecting the vote key to enforcing poll integrity

Henry Maina

NAIROBI: An election is a complex process, and irregularities may occur at any of all the different stages. Starting from pre-election legal framework, composition and structure of election management body, voter registration, campaigning period, to actual voting on the Election Day, to post-election vote counting, and result adjudication.
As such, violations of election integrity can take many forms ranging from limitations on the registration of political parties, approval of candidates to ballot box stuffing.
In Kenya, over the last 24 years, election violations have caused divisions. During the same period however, almost every other election has seen changes in election laws. These new laws and the way they tend to be implemented at times makes it difficult for eligible voters to participate in the voting process, by first making it impossible for them to get registered as voters.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has only registered 14 million of the 26.3 million people eligible to vote. This means with about a year to the next elections, over nine million voters (a third of all eligible voters) are yet to be registered.