•IEBC has identified 1,111 polling stations that are not covered by 3G/4G networks.
•The issue is part of Raila Odinga's demands to the commission when he appeared for clearance on June 5 at the Bomas of Kenya.
The planned acquisition of satellite modems for use in areas out of network coverage in the August poll is facing headwinds after IEBC veiled it was facing financial constraints.
IEBC through the support of the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) has mapped out and identified 1,111 polling stations that are not covered by 3G/4G networks.
The list of the polling stations, Chebukati said, will be released "on finalization of the register of voters."
In a detailed response letter to Azimio La Umoja presidential candidate Raila Odinga’s 10-point demands ahead of the poll, the commission’s chairperson Wafula Chebukati said it will only deploy the modems depending on the availability of budget.
It was not immediately clear if the commission had made any allocation in its budgetary allocation for the purpose.
Raila raised the concerns when he appeared for clearance on June 5 at the Bomas of Kenya.
The Supreme Court in annulling President Uhuru Kenyatta’s win cited cases where some presiding officers failed to transmit the results from their polling stations as required by law.
In curing this, IEBC sought the MPs node through an amendment of regulation 82 (2) of the Elections such that the officers can move to the nearest polling station when the network fails or proceed to the county tallying centre and transmit the results if there is no good network.
A week ago, Parliament’s delegated legislation committee, however, rejected the amendments saying they are not in tandem with the Constitution.
“Electronic transmission of results outside network was an issue raised in the first Supreme Court presidential petition. It is on this basis that the Commission proposed amendments to Elections regulations that were presented to the Parliament,” read the letter to Raila in part.
It further reads, “The committee, however, rejected. The commission will thus deploy the modems depending on the availability of the budget.”
A satellite modem is a modem used to establish data transfers using a communication satellite as a relay.
Commissioner Abdi Guliye while responding to questions from stakeholders during a simulation of the results transmission system at the Bomas of Kenya on Thursday last week gave a similar hint.
In assuring Kenyans of a credible exercise, Commission’s Secretary Marjan Hussein pointed out that channels to be used in the transmission of results through networks will be encrypted making it hard for anyone to interfere or alter the results.
“We are going to encrypt the channels, we are going to have virtual private networks on top of the existing networks to ensure results are transmitted in a secure path,” said Marjan.
He noted that this will make it impossible for anyone to access and change or replace the image of what is being transmitted.
During transmission, presiding officers send the captured images of forms 34A electronically to the national tallying centre as compared to a text format which he said was prone to manipulation.
During the meeting, it also emerged that Safaricom has been settled on as the primary network provider due to its strength in connectivity with one of the other mobile networks available in the country being chosen as a secondary.
Meanwhile, the commission will on Thursday receive the final report from the KMPG ahead with a stakeholder engagement on the final register of voters scheduled for Friday.
Prior to certification and publication of the register of voters, the commission has factored in several anomalies as was captured in the preliminary report from the firm.