•Yakub also said instead of 3 kits per ward, they have doubled it to 6 kits to promote smoother running of operations.
• In the polling station, the clerk will check the voter's identity against the voter database.
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has said manual registers will only be used if all the digital registers in polling stations are faulty. https://bit.ly/3ap8bnQ
Image: FILE
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission has said manual registers will only be used if all the digital registers in polling stations are faulty.
IEBC commissioner Abdi Yakub Guliye said the commission is abiding by the ruling in 2017, stating that the primary register will be the digital version.
Yakub said the manual register that has led to an uproar among presidential candidates is printed directly from the digital register.
"It is the digital register that we use to collect your details, we print and bind in form of a book. There is no way you can be in the manual and not be in the digital," he said.
Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga on Wednesday reaffirmed his stance that manual registers must be used at the August polls while Kenya Kwanza presidential candidate William Ruto appeared to back the IEBC plot to stick to electronic register only.
During the press conference, Yakub also said instead of 3 kits per ward, they have doubled it to 6 kits to promote smoother running of operations.
"In the kit, we insert a Secure Digital card which has the details of the register for that particular polling station."
In the event that a kit is faulty, the SD card will be removed and inserted into an alternative working kit.
"When you turn up and for some reason we cant find your details, the second option as per the court orders of 2017 is to replace the faulty kit," Yakub said.
Yakub affirmed that details stored on the SD card are protected and even if inserted to another computer, nobody will be able to access the information.
"If all the kits are not working, that is when we resort to using the manual register," he said.
Yakub said for one to be allowed to vote, they have to turn up at the polling station with the Identification Document that they used to register as a voter.
"It is only two documents that a person can use to register a s a voter, national ID and passport for persons outside the country," Yakub said.
On the day of voting, the clerk will check if the picture on the screen corresponds to the voter and if it does, they will be issued a ballot to allow them to vote.
"When we register you as a voter, we take ten finger prints, we only need one finger to identify you but we take 10 to mitigate the risk of not being correctly identified."
Yakub said during registration, they take facial images, ID numbers and phone numbers.
"A voter will have to identify themselves and produce the documents they used to register to ensure they are who they claim to be, then they tell you to put your finger on the kit, if you are in the register, your details will pop up," Yakub said.
"If your ten fingers are not readable and the kit is working normally, the ID number can be inserted and if you are a registered voter, your details will pop up."
Yakub said the reason the digital register is so important, is because the manual register is prone to misuse.
"The commission is trying to prevent tampering because if all the details are on display, as they are using the manual method, it is easy to falsely insert details and say a person has voted even if they have not."