Chiloba: Kenya’s election technical delays brought about by front end issues

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chief Executive Ezra Chiloba has announced that the technical delays seen in the refreshing of the portal of the presidential results has been brought about by front end issues.

“With regards to the technical hitch that we mentioned, it was not a back end issue, the back-end processes are OK; in fact the kits have been pushing in a lot of data so far we are talking about 28,000 stations reporting. At that time there was a lot of data from the field,” said Chiloba during a press conference.

“But the front end, what we see as a display, was the issue and that is what the team has been trying to find out how best to quickly interface between the back-end and the front-end. There is a tool they call a refresher tool, and it is something that they have been able to fix (to some extent) so we are going to see much more of the refresh. Knowing that it (results tallying) is happening, most of it online. We are comfortable that with time that will be a non-issue,” he added.

Chiloba went on to inform that 30,000 polling stations have 3G coverage. At the moment 28,000 polling stations have relayed the results, thus stating that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is on course with relaying results.

“So what we expect is that; most of the information that will be coming in will be coming in the form of text data, which may not be accompanied by the form, but that form will still be availed online, when the preceding officer moves to the polling station. It might also take a little longer because it’s the same time we expect that those who were not able to transmit to move to the tallying centre or a place where there is network to be able to transmit the results,” he continued.