Raila, Ruto Differ on the Use of Manual Voter Register in August Elections

Deputy President William Ruto has endorsed the use of electronic voter identification during the August 9th general elections.

This comes after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) dropped the use of the manual voter register as a complementary mechanism to the electronic identification of voters in the upcoming elections.

“We support your commitment to the electronic register, we are trying to move our parties to have our nominations like our competitors using the electronic register. There have been notions that are not correct that Kenya Kwanza wants a manual register, we do not want a manual register. If you give us sufficient safeguards that an electronic register will function without any chance of failure, then we are good,” Ruto said during a meeting with the IEBC officials on Wednesday.

But Azimio La Umoja-One Kenya coalition party presidential candidate Raila Odinga and several civil society organizations have questioned the commission’s rationale in its directive.

Odinga raised fears that the electronic voter identification system could collapse by default or design, thereby denying voters an opportunity to exercise their democratic right at the ballot. Through his chief legal advisor Paul Mwangi, Odinga said the directive is risky since it is based on an assumption that the KIEMS kits will work seamlessly.

Last week, IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati said the commission will instead use alpha numeric search as a complementary mechanism for identifying voters in the forthcoming elections.

IEBC insists that the backup complimentary kits through the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) will be good enough and no voter will be denied a chance to vote. The commission termed the move as the ultimate solution to electoral malpractices.

“The failure rate is supposed to be very low because we have 10 fingerprints and we only need one…so if one fails, you go to the next one until all the 10 are exhausted,” IEBC Commissioner Abdi Guliye said.

Seven civil society organizations have moved to court to challenge IEBC’s decision and want the commission compelled to restore the use of the manual register.