Prisoners to vote in August 8 General Election

Prisoners to vote in August 8 General Election

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) now says it will register prisoners as voters in order to allow them participate in the democratic exercise of installing leaders of their choice come August 8, 2017.

IEBC announced that it will gazette prisons as registration centers based on the data to be received from the State Department for Correctional Services in a bid to enhance the right of prisoners to participate in the electoral process.

In a statement to newsrooms, IEBC Chairperson, Wafula Chebukati, said the Commission plans to roll out the registration of voters in prisons from February 20 to 27.

“The Commission reckoned that there would be need to develop regulations to govern the participation of prisoners in elections,” read the statement in part.

Following the drought situation across the country, Chebukati said that the commission will allow registration clerks in counties affected by drought to avail fresh registration services within the electoral areas where potential voters could be settled at the moment.

The electoral boss was, however, keen to note that the movement of the BVR kit shall be confined within the constituency.

Registration clerks in the affected counties have further been directed to also accept transfer applications at their respective registration centers.

The electoral body has so far registered 825,145 Kenyans in the ongoing voter registration exercise which the commission says is 58% of voters out of a weekly target of 1.4 million voters.

While making the announcement on Tuesday, the poll body further indicated that for the country to achieve that target, the commission would need to register at least 200,000 new voters daily translating to 1.42 million voters a week.

Tags:

IEBC prisoners Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati Voter Registration counties affected by drought State Department for Correctional Services

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