NASA granted access to IEBC servers

Supreme Court judges have allowed NASA and President Kenyatta read-only access to the electoral commission servers and certified copies of original forms 34A, 34B and 34C.

While delivering the ruling, Justice Isaac Lenaola said the Supreme Court decision was based on three main things that: our electoral system is partly electronic and partly manual, the integrity of the system including passwords must be protected and the manufacturers of the electoral systems are in France, hence orders cannot be granted to summon them due to time constraints.

Justice Lenaola then directed the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to provide the opposition with information, including the number of servers used during the general election, access to all procured KIEMS kit (used or unused), firewalls without disclosure of software, operating system and, software and password policy.

Access granted to NASA 

• Number of servers used during the August 8th General Elections
• Operating software of KIEMS kit
• Passwords used
• Software policy
• System user types
• GPRS locations of the KIEMS kit
• Allocation list by polling station for all KIEMS kit
• Certified copies of penetration tests conducted on KIEMS kit prior to the general election
• Certified copies of original forms 34A, 34B and 34C.

Priority has also be given to 292 polling stations in contention as raised by ODM Executive Director Norman Magaya’s affidavit, 688 polling Stations as raised by Omar Yussuf who has filed an affidavit in support of Raila Odinga case and 14,078 polling stations as listed by Dr. Nyangasi.

The IEBC is also to provide scanned and transmitted copies of all forms.

An ICT officer appointed by the Supreme Court and Judiciary’s ICT officer shall supervise, access the technology used and prepare a report together with two agents each from the parties in court. The report shall be filed in court on Tuesday at 5pm.

In Summary, NASA will have a very restricted and specific access to the servers even though they had asked for unfettered access.

Interpretation of Decision

The key requests by NASA have been granted on both server access and original forms.

The report will assist court settle hacking claims, alleged existence of non-gazetted polling stations, presence of original forms, alleged differences of results as announced at the polling station and those captured on forms.