The Election Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2024, makes inordinate delays by returning officers to declare election results without justification illegal.
The proposed law, which could spell doom for officials of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, is co-sponsored by Senate Majority leader Aaron Cheruiyot and his Minority counterpart Stewart Madzayo.
The Bill has been published, pending introduction in the Senate for the first reading.
It is among the nine Bills proposed by the National Dialogue Committee (Nadco).
The committee fronted the Bills after months of public engagements to fix loopholes witnessed in the August 2022 elections.
“The Bill seeks to give effect to recommendations and views of the public that were submitted during the national dialogue discourse on the Issues of Electoral Justice and Related Matters,” the Nadco Bill states.
In the Bill, Cheruiyot and Madzayo seek to amend section six of the parent Act to extend the list of offences by members of the commission.
“The clause creates offences for members and staff of the commission who unreasonably delay in declaring elections results or knowingly alter declared election results,” the Bill states.
Previously, cases of election officials delaying the declaration of results, ostensibly to alter the outcome of an election, have marred the polls.
The Bill further provides that it shall be an offence for members and staff of the IEBC to conduct or hold an election in ungazzetted polling stations.
In the last election, petitioners in the case challenging the presidential results, claimed some poll officials conducted elections in areas not gazetted as polling stations.
In the current Act, the law provides that an official of the commission who commits an electoral offence is liable on conviction, to a fine not exceeding Sh2 million or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both.
Other offences prescribed under the Act include wilful prevention of any person from voting at the polling station at which they know or have reasonable cause to believe such person is entitled to vote.
Interfering with a voter in the casting of his vote in secret is also an offence under the principal Act.
Others are wilful counting of any ballot paper as being cast for any candidate that they know or have reasonable cause to believe was not validly cast for that candidate.
“Wilfully contravenes the law to give undue advantage to a candidate or a political party on partisan, ethnic, religious, gender or any other unlawful considerations,” the Act states.
