Mass voter registration to kick off in Nakuru

Preparation for the national official launch of voter registration exercise at Nakuru Athletics Club.[Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Mass voter registration for new voters will begin today across the country.

The national launch of the exercise is scheduled to be done in Nakuru town today at the Nakuru Athletic Club (NAC) presided over by IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati.

Speaking to The Standard, IEBC Nakuru County elections manager Silas Rotich said that all was set for the exercise.

"We are ready to host the national launch of enhanced continuous voter registration. We are privileged to have the chairman launching the activity in Nakuru," said Rotich.

He described the exercise as a major activity for the electoral commission in preparation for the 2022 general elections.

"The entire commission will be in attendance alongside all political leaders from across the county. The registration will also kick off in all the wards," said Rotich.

He said that the commission has already deployed clerks and biometric voter registration (BVR) kits to all the wards.

He added that each clerk has been given a target on the number of new voters they are expected to have registered by the end of the exercise.

"We shall have six clerks in each ward all over the country. We are targeting to net in excess of new 4.5 million voters," said Rotich.

The registrar of persons has registered over 6 million new Identify Card holders since 2017 majority of whom are yet to register as voters.

As of 2017, data from the IEBC indicate that the country had a total of 19,611,423 registered voters spread in 40,883 polling stations.

Rotich explained that "In Nakuru County we have a target of at least 220,000 new voters to be registered during the thirty days period"

In 2017, Nakuru was among the country's largest vote baskets with 949,618 registered voters.