•The election observer body wants the IEBC to publish the names of voters it cleared to enable public scrutiny
•Elog argues that the IEBC is not properly constituted to conduct the referendum
Thirdway Alliance's Punguza mzigo initiative to amend the constitution could run into headwinds after an election observer group claimed a significant number of signatures the IEBC used to give it a green light were not authentic.
Election Observer Group (ELOG) on Monday claimed that numerous signatures in the filled forms were uniform "raising the question of authenticity and reliability of the signed forms" among other irregularities that could open the process to endless litigation.
Addressing the press in Nairobi, the outfit's national coordinator Mulle Musau said the whole exercise of verifying the signatures was shrouded in opaqueness and that they were not allowed to access the entire documents that were being reviewed.
But for those that they reviewed, Mulle said, a number of listed voters had similar ID numbers while some forms had missing details like ID numbers and signatures, further impugning the process.
In addition, the body argues that IEBC failed to open up the process for public scrutiny and participation "so that Kenyan voters could ascertain that their signatures and details were listed with their consent."
"The IEBC okeyed 1.2 million signatures submitted by the promoters of the punguza mzigo initiative without giving Kenyans an opportunity to ascertain if indeed the said signatures were given with their consent," the statement said.
Further, the permanent election observer outfit also questioned what the IEBC used as repository for verifying the signatures, arguing that it does not maintain a database of signatures against which the collected ones would be run against, like the banks do.
"Since IEBC had no repository of specimen signatures (like banks do), there was no way to compare and verify the same," they said in a statement.
The organization also faulted the electoral body for not deploying its biometric resources in the verification exercise despite heavy investment by the body to develop a biometric voter database.
As a remedy, the body said that the IEBC should publish the signatures that it okayed in the Kenya gazzette or any other public medium "in line with open data principles to allow those whose details are captured in the forms can confirm that they consented to the petition."
"This is a critical issue that would further authenticate the process, enhance transparency and avoid unnecessary litigation," they said.
Elog also decried the missing legal framework for conducting referenda in the country, calling for the enactment of the Referendum Bill, 2019 which, it said, has never been tabled in parliament. It also argued that the electoral body is not properly constituted to conduct the vote, should the bill sail through at the county assemblies.
But contacted for comment, both Thirdway Alliance's party leader Ekuru Aukot and secretary general Fredrick Okago were bullish, accusing the media and Elog of engaging in "malicious misinformation campaign" against the draft bill.
They dismissed Elog's assessment, claiming that the outfit was never accredited to monitor the exercise in the first place,and maintaining that IEBC gave clear account of the signatures it cleared.