The electoral commission and civil societies’ role before the August 8 polls

The political party primaries saw a rise in the number of spoilt votes. In a polling station in Central Kenya for example, more than 2,000 votes were declared spoilt. This is alarming. It beats logic for a voter to spend a whole day queuing only for his/her vote to be declared invalid.

Adequate campaigns should be done on ballot papers by making voters familiar with them, mainly to show their structure and how they should be marked to reduce the number of spoilt votes.