Concern as over 100,000 votes are rejected ballots

The August 9 general election has opened the lid on Kenya's poor civic education on matters related to voting.

In the just concluded and hotly contested elections, over 100,000 Kenyans woke up early morning and queued for hours before casting their ballots.

But, unbeknownst to them, their desire to exercise their constitutional right by participating in electing a fresh batch of leaders amounted to zero work. 

This is because IEBC's final tally of votes indicated that 113,614 Kenyans voted but their votes ended up being rejected.

According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, a rejected ballot is one which cannot be counted due to improper marking by the voter.

Examples of this are ballots which have more than one mark, the intent of the voter cannot be ascertained, or the voter can be identified by their mark.

"Ballot papers that do not bear the IEBC stamp on the back will also be treated as rejected ballots," IEBC says in their voter education brief.

According to the IEBC, Nairobi county accounted for the highest number of rejected votes as it had 12,869.

It was followed by Kiambu county with 5,635 rejected votes.

Other counties with high number of rejected votes are Kakamega county (5,562), Bungoma (5,516), Nakuru (5,503), Meru (4,809) and Mombasa county (3,812)

At 340, Samburu county had the lowest rejected votes alongside Diapora which had 44.

And in as much as the August polls did not have any ballots categorised as disputed votes, the electoral agency said in the event that a vote is claimed by more than one contestant or agent, the Presiding Officer will count the vote in favour of one candidate and mark it as "disputed."

"The Returning Officer will thereafter make the final ruling on the vote," IEBC notes.