How IEBC will make 2017 polling efficient

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) says that it will adhere to the set guidelines on the number of voters per police station.

IEBC Chief Executive Officer, Ezra Chiloba, while speaking at the Leadership Summit in the 2017 Polls in Mombasa on Saturday, December 3, said that the commission will execute its mandate in line with the Constitution of Kenya 2010 to ensure the country gets a free and fair poll.

While making his presentation in the summit being attended by President Uhuru Kenyatta, Chiloba said that IEBC has developed a mechanism that will make the electoral process more efficient.

Among the measures he outlined include the reduction of number of voters per polling station.

“On the number of voters per polling station, we will stick to the capped figure of 500 voters,” said Chiloba.

“Our idea is to expedite the voting process by reducing the voting queues.”

The pronouncement by Chiloba comes a day after the electoral body released the 2017 elections Road Map that outlines the steps to be taken by the electoral body at each process.

According to the new calendar, political parties are required to submit names of their members to contest in party primaries between March 23 and April 5, 2017, while the actual party nominations are slated to take place between April 13 and April 26.

Any dispute arising from party primaries will be resolved within 30 days beginning April 20 to May 2017.

Parties have been allowed two days between May 28 and 29, 2017 to nominate their candidates for presidential election.

IEBC will receive political parties comprehensive list of candidates to participate in the General Election between June 10 and June 24, 2017.

The commission will conduct the second phase of voter registration between January 16 and February 15, 2017, while Diaspora voters will be allowed 15 days to register between February 1 and February 15, 2017.

IEBC’s final and comprehensive voters register is expected to be ready by June 17, 2017.

On election results transmission, the IEBC chief said that they are consulting with all stakeholders to ensure a smooth process.

“The law requires us to transmit results from polling stations. Recently, the Communication Authority told us only 17% of the country is covered by 3G technology, 10% is not covered at all,” noted Chiloba.

“We must have a conversation on the practicality of the timeliness and road map proposed in the law.”

According to IEBC, the Results Transmission System (RTS) is used to relay provisional results electronically to an observation centre after which the counted and tallied votes are entered in the signed result sheet (Form 35) by the Presiding Officers (Pos) and transmitted to simultaneous election results centres at the constituency, county and national level.

The system is used to enhance transparency through electronic transmission of provisional results from the polling stations; display and visualize provisional results at the tally centers; and provide access to provisional elections data to media and other stakeholders in real time.

During the March 4, 2013 polls, only 17,000 of the 33,000 polling stations managed to transmit results before it suffered some technical hitches, according to the poll body.

IEBC notes that it is working towards strengthening the results transmission system by setting up faster connectivity and better servers.

Reporting by Francis Gachuri; Writing by Koome Kimonye