Rift Valley, Eastern regions top IEBC voter registration

The August 8, 2017 General Election will see at least 3.7 million new voters participate in the poll after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) concluded the second and final phase of mass voter registration.

The exercise, which concluded on Sunday, February 19, listed 3,782,089 new voters, which represents a 62% of the 6.1 million target.

The electoral body chairman, Wafula Wanyonyi Chebukati, said the numbers were not satisfactory but noted good progress.

According to the latest IEBC numbers, Kajiado, Mandera and Narok counties recorded the highest number of new voters standing at 240%, 116% and 102% respectively.

The statistics show the capital Nairobi, registered 461,346 new voters, Kiambu followed with 225,995 and Nakuru at 175,756 new listing.

During the month-long voter registration exercise, 1,001,819 voters applied to change their polling stations from their previous voting centres.

However, IEBC says the voter registration exercise is continuous and those still willing to register can do so at the Constituency offices until March 7 when the exercise officially closes.

According to the IEBC chair, registration of more than 49,000 prisoners in the country’s correctional facilities starts Wednesday, February 22 with the inmates allowed to vote for only the presidential candidate.

Registration of Kenyans living in the East African region and South Africa, which targets to list 130,000 new voters, started on Tuesday, February 20 and will continue until March 6 and will cost the taxpayer an estimated Ksh 120,000.

The statistics show that Rift Valley region, the country’s largest, registered 882,626 new voters followed by Eastern at 594,527 voters, Central with 510,902 new voters, Nairobi with 461,346, Nyanza with 449,740, Coast with 404,828, Western with 303,711 while North Eastern registered only 110,698 new voters.

The electoral body says that its register has 19.6 million registered voters pending the cleaning up exercise.

IEBC has also set March 26 – April 5 as the period political parties should submit lists of candidates for the primaries and their gazettement done between March 30 and April 10.

Party primaries will be held between April 13 and 26.