Kenya’s electoral body the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has confirmed it has tested its systems, including the communication equipment that would be used in the forthcoming general elections on March 4.
IEBC said it will dispatch over 33,000 mobile phones for use by returning officers who will input data on its system as election results come in.
According to the IEBC the electronic results, to be relayed at constituency, county and national levels, will still be compared to the hard copy documents to verify that the election results remain unaltered.
The IEBC further unveiled its API system to be used by various media stations and other websites to receive the results in real time, saying these would enhance transparency and that remove time windows for the alteration of results.
“By the close of the day on March 4, the country will get a picture of where different parties stand in the elections and their accumulated results,” the IEBC’s chief executive officer James Oswago said.
Last month, the body asked political parties to inspect the systems put up for the elections.
“We have asked the political parties to bring in their best information and technology experts to test our systems,” Oswago said. “We want to present the system to them and show how it will work and let them test it so that they can have faith in the technology as well.”
The current electoral body has been innovative as it implemented a digital registration module that saw over 14.5 million Kenyans register for the polls in 30 days, and over 1.2 million deceased voters removed from the voting list making the list more current and transparent.
