The IEBC has proposed that the law be amended to have the presidential election results announced at the constituency and county levels.
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Isaack Hassan said this will ease pressure on the agency and presidential returning officer at the national tallying centre.
“When the process is done at one point, it raises the stakes and pressure becomes too much,” he told the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on the IEBC.
Currently, results are tallied and announced at the national tallying centre by the IEBC chairman – the presidential returning officer.
The tallying centre was at the Bomas of Kenya in 2013.
The IEBC has proposed that results declared by county returning officers should be final.
“If this is the way to go to make presidential results more transparent and acceptable and raise confidence levels, so be it,” Hassan said.
Cord has said the decentralisation of announcement of presidential results will seal rigging loopholes and manipulation of results.
The commission said it supports the suggestion that all election petitions, except the presidential one, end at the Court of Appeal.
“The public needs to know who its elected leaders are quickly, not after two years,” Hassan said.
The IEBC boss said the law should be ammended to have two levels of elections – county and national.
“Staggering is a good thing. Most democratic countries, including our neighbours, do not do elections in one day,” Hassan said.
He said the IEBC is willing to oversee party primaries for political parties at their cost, but urged them to handle their nominations internally.
Hassan urged parties to create internal structures to deal with disputes “instead of involving the IEBC in nomination messes”.
Regarding the Treasury’s suggestion that ID cards be used as voters cards, the commission said this would expose the register to state manipulation.
Hassan said all laws around registration must be integrated to make integration possible.
“There are five set of laws that govern registration of persons, which is in the custody of the executive, which is an interested party,” he said.
“We need an independent party to take care of the voters’ register. It might sound like a fancy and interesting idea, but it is dangerous, given our experience as a country.”
Hassan said the IEBC is a neutral agency, best suited to safeguard the voters register.