Kenyan MPs Scrap IEBC Server-Access Guarantee Ahead of 2027 General Election

Members of Parliament in Kenya have scrapped a provision that would have guaranteed access to the election servers and technology of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the Daily Nation reported. The guarantee will not become part of the country's election laws, which are under review ahead of the general election scheduled for 2027.

The decision was taken in Nairobi, where Kenya's Parliament sits, as lawmakers considered changes to the legal framework that will govern the conduct of the polls. The scrapped provision had proposed a formal guarantee of access to the commission's servers and to the technology the electoral body uses to run elections.

The IEBC is the constitutional body responsible for conducting and supervising elections in Kenya. Its mandate, set out in the 2010 Constitution, covers elections for the offices of President, members of the National Assembly and the Senate, county governors and members of county assemblies, as well as referenda. The commission also manages continuous voter registration, maintains the national register of voters and regulates the nomination of candidates by political parties.

The commission consists of a chairperson and six members, who are selected through a panel-based appointment process set out in law. The holder of the top job presides over the body that declares the results of presidential elections and oversees the electoral operation from voter registration to the final tally.

Technology has been central to Kenyan elections for more than a decade. Biometric voter registration was first rolled out for the 2013 general election, and since 2017 the commission has used the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System, known as KIEMS, whose handheld kits identify voters electronically at polling stations and transmit results. Scanned copies of polling-station result forms are published on an online portal open to the public.

Under existing election rules, candidates and political parties appoint agents to observe polling and the counting of votes at polling stations, and those agents sign the official result forms before transmission. Access to the commission's central systems has been governed separately from observation at the polling station.

Disputes over access to the commission's servers have marked past election cycles. In 2017, the Supreme Court annulled that year's presidential election in a judgment that cited irregularities in the conduct of the poll, with the electronic transmission of results at the centre of the case. In the petition filed after the 2022 presidential election, the Supreme Court was asked to compel the commission to open its servers for scrutiny. The court dismissed the petition and upheld the election of President William Ruto.

The scrapping of the server-access guarantee comes as the electoral body undergoes reconstitution ahead of the 2027 polls. The IEBC has shortlisted nine candidates for the top job at the commission, according to a separate Daily Nation report, a step in the selection process for the leadership that will take charge of the next general election.

Kenya holds general elections every five years, and the next cycle falls in 2027, when voters will elect the President, members of the National Assembly and the Senate, county governors and members of county assemblies. President Ruto took office in September 2022 after winning the August 2022 presidential election, and his first term runs until the next general election.

The Elections Act, the principal statute governing the conduct of polls in Kenya, sets out rules on voter registration, the nomination of candidates, polling day procedures and the transmission, tallying and declaration of results. Amendments to the statute pass through Parliament's ordinary legislative process, under which a bill approved by the two houses is presented to the President for assent before it becomes law.

The register of voters is opened for public inspection and is audited before general elections, and the commission is required to update it continuously between polls. The register and the systems used to transmit results constitute the technology whose access had been at issue in the provision removed by MPs.