The Kenya Human Rights Commission and Inuka Kenya Ni Sisi argue that the polls agency in 2017 failed to display the forms as required by law.
The groups are against the mere transmission of results in numerical terms without the backing of the requisite forms – Form 34A and Form 34B.
“After the 2017 General Elections, the manner in which the elections were conducted was not verifiable leading the Supreme Court to order for the opening of servers,” the lobbyists said in their submissions.
They further held that the IEBC delayed, if not refused, to publish the forms in the public portal as required whereas those that were uploaded were incomplete or lacked the necessary forms.
The petitioners also argue that the IEBC hurriedly closed the portals immediately after the elections making it impossible to verify the credibility of the results announced.
The lot thus wants the court to make a declaration that the IEBC and its Chairman Wafula Chebukati are duty-bound to maintain the portal.
The petitioners want the publicly accessible portal holding the forms for the presidential election up and running during the election, at the time of tallying and after the announcement of results.
“The petitioner humbly prays for a declaration that failure to maintain the publicly accessible portal holding all Forms 34A and Forms 34B transmitted by the constituency Returning Officer during the elections, at the time of tallying and after elections is a violation of the Constitution,” the filings read.
The lobbyists further want the court to make it mandatory for the IEBC to make the forms available simultaneously with the transmitted results in numerical terms.
In 2017, the Supreme Court nullified the presidential elections on grounds it was not verifiable and cited IEBC’s failure to display the forms as was ruled in a case that was ruled in favour of Maina Kiai.
“In our respectful view, the two limbs of Section 83 of the Elections Act should be applied disjunctively. In the circumstances, a petitioner who is able to satisfactorily prove either of the two limbs of the Section can void an election,” former CJ David Maraga-led bench ruled.
The petitioners add that by displaying the forms, IEBC would be encouraged to do all that is possible to conduct a transparent and verifiable election.
“It will serve to inspire confidence in the commitment of the respondents to deliver an election that complies with all the dictates of the law,” KHRC and Inuka Kenya argue in their case.
Section 39 (1C) (c) of the Election Act requires that for purposes of transparency, the polling result forms are published on an online portal maintained by the commission.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)
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