5227 Kenyans with poor biometrics will be considered for complimentary mechanism of voting, says IEBC

There are 5227 Kenyans with poor biometrics and therefore any voter not identified using biometrics will be considered for complimentary mechanism of voting and will need to fill form 32A.

In a press statement signed by the Chairman of IEBC, Wafula Chebukati, “The commission wishes to remind Kenyans that identification of voters will be done through biometrics. There are 5227 Kenyans with poor biometrics and this information has been provided to respective returning officers. Any voter that is not identified using biometrics will be considered for complimentary mechanism of voting and will need to fill form 32A.”

Through the statement IEBC further assured Kenyans that the Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) gadgets had been deployed to all constituencies. On 2nd August 2017 the commission successfully simulated the transmission of results from 47 counties in the country.

However, Mr. Chebukati said that it was important to note that while all efforts had been made to train all the staff on the KIEMS, there was a possibility of inconsistencies between the keyed in results transmitted by officers and the scanned forms transmitted.

He urged Kenyans to await the official announcement from the commission that will be based on the scanned forms.

Further to this IEBC also announced that training of all clerks, presiding and deputy presiding officers for the general election had been completed. Distribution of election materials will also be completed by Monday 7th August, 2017.

Slated for Tuesday 8th August 2017, this will be the second election held after the Promulgation of Kenya’s Constitution and will see 19,611,423 Kenyans cast their votes. In June 2017, the commission certified the electoral register, removing a total of 88,602 dead people who were still on the roll of voters.

This is after the auditing company KPMG concluded that 1.5 million people over the age of 18 could have died between 2012 and December last year when the current register was developed. The total number of voters includes 4,393 diaspora in 5 countries and 5,528 registered in 118 prisons across the country.

Meanwhile, The Governement has announced that all Huduma Centres will remain open on this weekend in preparation for the General Elections.

The centres across the country will be operatonal from Saturday 5th August to Monday 7th August 2017 to enable Kenyans collect or replace their IDs so that they can vote don Tuesday.

The ID is considered as a crucial document for the identification of voters especially in cases one does not appear in the biometric register.