Kibaki launches electronic voter registration exercise

By Digital Reporter

President Mwai Kibaki on Monday launched the Biometric voter registration process that is expected to take place for the next 30 days.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission aims to register 18 million voters by the end of the exercise.

A total of 29,000 voter registration clerks have been trained and will undertake the electronic registration process on 25,000 centres country wide.

Speaking during the launch at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), President Kibaki lauded the IEBC for the work done so far in preparation for the March 4 general election and assured the commission of full support.

“The government will continue to support IEBC in providing necessary environment to conduct free, fair and peaceful elections. We will provide the required financial, human and physical resources as well as adequate security to ensure that all aspects of the electoral process are carried out as planned,” said the president.

IEBC Chair Isaack Hassan cautioned people against multiple registration as such malpractice would be easily detected.

He added that reports from ministries will be used to clean the recorded data and ensure the voter register has details of only the eligible voters.

“We have everything in place, it’s for you now to come forward and register as voters,” said Hassan.  

The process will take place every day from 8am to 5pm.

IEBC has refuted claims that the registration kits are insufficient and said that the process expected to end on December 19 will not be extended.

However, concern has been raised over the slow pace of Identification cards issuance which would lead to two million youths missing registration as voters.