The Ombudsman has given the poll agency IEBC a thumbs up, in the conduct of the just concluded general election.
A report by the commission on administrative justice says it deployed 120 poll monitors, including commissioners and staffers, to more than 700 polling stations across 33 counties.
It said the election proceeded fairly smoothly across the country and hitches that emerged were dealt with promptly.
The commission observed station opening, voting processes, closure of polling station as well as vote counting and tallying.
Among the challenges it listed were late opening of stations in some few areas, malfunctioning KIEMS kits and isolated cases of sporadic violence in Siaya and Homa Bay.
The report is signed by the commission chair and former Meru Woman representative Florence Kajuju.
“There was notable delays in identification of some voters using the KIEMS kits in various stations, which slowed the voting process.
"However, other identification methods such as the facial and identity cards bar-coding were used, which ensured the affected voters were not disenfranchised,” the report reads.
It says through the processes, despite pensive moments brought by delays and machines failures, voters remained largely calm and patient.
The report further says law enforcement personnel and IEBC officials also conducted themselves with courtesy and politeness.
It also lauded the commission for including agents and independent observers in the handling of the results, capturing of the screenshots of the signed forms and uploading them on the national portal.
However, the commission decries the litigious nature of the electoral process in the country saying it makes the process chaotic and uncertain.
In particular, it complains that the multiplicity of court cases that are litigated to the polling day has resulted in disorganised jurisprudence, as different election workers had different interpretation of the court decisions and the laws.
“Court pronouncement on various cases lodged in the run up to the polling day [is a big challenge].
"Some of the court decisions were delivered too close to the polling day, which inhibited the IEBC from training their staff on the voting system,” it said.
For example, the staff had varying interpretation on the use of manual register post the High Court decision on August 5 and the Court of Appeal ruling on August 8.
The commission said there is need to harmonise the law and court decision relating to electoral jurisprudence as “the conflicting legal framework negates the letter and spirit for which they were legislated.”
It also decries what it terms as disenfranchisement of the poll workers drawn from different sectors of the society such as police officers, the IEBC staff, observers engaged in the process.
The commission joins an association of African Ombudsmen that had cleared the poll agency of any blame in the concluded election.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
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