Premium

Satellite modems availability to depend on funds, IEBC tells Raila Odinga

IEBC Commissioners led by Chairman Wafula Chebukati address a press conference at Bomas of Kenya during the clearance of presidential candidates, on Monday, June 6, 2022. [Samson Wire. Standard].

The election commission has confirmed to Raila Odinga that only digital registers will be used at polling stations, and that all voters will be identified electronically.

In responses to 10 grievances by Raila, Azimio la Umoja One Kenya presidential candidate, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chair Wafula Chebukati also said procurement of satellite modems to transmit results is predicated on availability of funds.

There are 1,111 polling centres without 3G/4G network.

Chebukati said the decision to drop the use of hard copies of the voters register was arrived at after evaluating the conduct of the 2017 General Election as well as the repeat presidential poll of the same year.

Without offering details, he claimed hard copies were misused.

In August, each Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kit will be loaded with a digital voter’s register and the particulars localised to the respective polling stations for purposes of voter identification.

“Where voters cannot be identified electronically using their biometrics, their biographical information as indicated in their identification documents will be used for ascertaining their identity and to clear them to vote,” Chebukati said.

He said the kits have been enabled to work in an offline and standby mode during identification. 

Rational explanation

The polls chief dismissed some of the claims that the ballot-printing company is incompetent and that there are widespread cases of names missing in the voter register.

“There were few cases where voter registration details were not in the register of the electoral areas they had applied for registration,” Chebukati said.

“IEBC has not only taken corrective measures to address the few reported cases but is also conducting a review of all recent transfers with view of identifying and reversing all cases that could have been effected without requisite documentations.”

On Raila’s claim that voters in some counties have suspiciously grown up to one million without rational explanation, Chebukati said he is not aware, and only knows that nationally, just 2.5 million new voters were netted in the last two phases of registration.

But it was Chebukati’s responses on results transmission for areas without network that was puzzling.

He said given that Parliament had rebuffed IEBC’s proposals to have presiding officers of these areas to move to nearest network areas, the Commission will deploy satellite modems “depending on availability of budget.”

He did not explain what happens if the budget for that is unavailable.

Chebukati also appeared to blame Communication Authority (CA) on the method of identifying the 1,111 polling centres that do not have 3G or 4G network.

“IEBC engaged CA to undertake Quality of Service (QOS) of GSM network in the country. The CA has since availed a report, based on desktop review, instead of QOS,” he said.

He said he is still engaging mobile network operators to establish which among them has better 3G/4G signals to enable IEBC make a decision on whom to contract.

He also said that satellite modems will be deployed depending on the extent of network coverage.

Chebukati defended IEBC’s proposal to have presiding officers to open sealed ballot boxes to remove wrongly deposited election material.

He said the proposal was not novel as IEBC has previously done it, and that it is based on past incidents which necessitated such opening.

He also stood his ground on proposals to amend the regulations to give IEBC exclusive mandate to appoint election officials.

He said the regulation requiring involvement of political parties had been overtaken by events.

“Sharing names of RO’s with political parties and candidates is unnecessary since they are already employees of the Commission,” he said.

Chebukati said IEBC did proper due diligence on Inform Lykos, the company printing the ballot papers. and denied reports that it was linked to last-minute postponement of elections in Nigeria.

He claimed that the company actually rescued the situation in Nigeria, stepping in for another one which failed to deliver. Again, he predicated involvement of stakeholders in checking the integrity of the supply and delivery of election materials on availability of funds.

Institutional reforms

He also defended Smartmatic Holdings, saying election data has since been moved from Morpho, that system installation of election software is ongoing and technology risk mitigation measures are in place to enable recoveries and avoid failures.

“IEBC has prepared a production facility and hired staff for purposes of installing application software, the digital register and insertion of SIM cards. The installation of application software is done wirelessly without human intervention,” he said.

Chebukati said that in the past, IEBC has been unable to conduct audit of its technology but they are conducting an audit after they were given funds for that.

He also talked of legislative and institutional reforms IEBC had either effected or proposed from the lessons picked in conduct of 2017 election and the Supreme Court decision of the same year. He said IEBC is on course in implementation of election timelines.

[email protected]