ELOG says parallel vote tally in tandem with IEBC

The Election Observation Group has said its parallel vote tabulation is consistent with the IEBC's official results for the 2022 presidential race.

ELOG chairperson Anne Ireri on Tuesday said the tabulation projections corroborate the official results.

“In light of our assessment of the Election Day processes, the IEBC figures fall within the projected ranges,” she said.

Ireri said Azimio presidential candidate Raila Odinga had been projected to get 48.7 per cent of the votes. The IEBC gave Raila 48.85 per cent.

There was a margin of error of +/-2.1 per cent.

During the August 9 election, there were 22,120,458 registered voters and 16,098 candidates.

President-elect William Ruto attained 50.49 per cent, as per IEBC’s statistics.

ELOG had given Ruto 50.7 per cent with a margin of error of +/-2.1 per cent.

Ireri said the tabulation projection for final turnout was 65.1 per cent with a margin of error of+/· 0.7 per cent.

She said IEBC's official turnout of 65.4 per cent falls within ELOG's estimated range and accurately reflects the turnout of voters.

“This is a notable drop from previous elections,” she said.

Ireri said PVT projections for the final rejected ballots is 0.8 per cent with a margin of error of +/· 0.1 per cent.

The observers, however, raised concerns over the chaos that preceded the declaration of the presidential results and the split in the electoral agency that saw four commissioners bolt out.

“We are extremely concerned about the chaos that broke out at the national tallying center at Bomas.

"Also the split within the IEBC that saw some commissioners quit from the tallying process and issue their own statements prior to the announcement of the presidential results,” Ireri said.

She said having observed the electoral process over a period of time, it is clear the country has made strides toward credible election.

Ireri said a lot, however, still needs to be done.

Some of the issues that Ireri says needs to be addressed to improve the integrity of election include quick resolution of election-related court cases ahead of Election Day, particularly those that directly impact Election Day procedures and processes.

The chairperson said there is need to ensure transparency in the integrity and maintenance of the voter register.

She said this includes providing full access to the KPMG audit report and clear status updates on the uptake of recommendations from the report.

Ireri said there is need for an audit of the register to help improve the integrity of the register.

She said there is also a need for the provision of consistent civic and voter education to ensure that voters are well informed of their rights and responsibilities.

ELOG said electoral offences must be punished as one way of enforcing the code of conduct for political parties or candidates.

Ireri said efforts must be made to ensure consistent openness, transparency, inclusive participation and timely access to information by the IEBC and other agencies concerned with election management.

She said polling stations should also be physically accessible to persons living with disabilities and the elderly.

The chairperson further said there should be fidelity to the constitutional two-third gender threshold.

ELOG closely monitored the pre-election environment processes since January 2022, by deploying one long-term observer in each of the 290 constituencies.

Also, 40 media monitors and 46 electoral violence monitors, to observe and report on the pre-election environment.

For Election Day, ELOG deployed more than 5,000 observers across all 47 counties and 290 constituencies.

Of these, 1,000 Parallel Vote Tabulation observers were carefully recruited, specially trained and deployed to a nationally representative random sample of polling stations.

ELOG said the Election Day was relatively calm and organised with some marked improvements in voting operations and use of results technology.

However, they said administrative and external problems persisted, such as the postponement of some elections on or just before Election Day.

Also, the inconsistent presence of voting materials such as the manual register, isolated incidents of violence and the initial obstruction of observers.

ELOG, however, said the results transmission system worked much better than expected from the IEBC's two simulations.

More than 99 per cent of scanned images of the 34A and 34B were posted on the IEBC's web public portal.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)