Free Fair Elections…?? What does that mean? 

For so many if us, elections are that five year occasion that seems to precipitate some kind of violence, hatred and injustice, we tend to think that this period we are allowed to go lawless and fall victim to our dark desires with no follow up!! I notice, with increasing pain and wonder how much Kenyans are ignorant of the electoral process. Why them should we be surprised if our candidate doesn’t win and calls for protests?

How can we know a legitimate tally, result?

To start off there are names we need to define There is a Polling station, Polling Center, Contituency Returning Officer, County Tallying Center & National Tallying center.

Polling Station – this is the room, partition in a hall, section in an open field where you lined up, got searched (fingerprint or ID incase ptints were off), given the ballot papers and led to a booth! This basic unit is the most important, led by a Presiding Officer (P.O) under the observation of party agents(important!) each Party had allocated agents to each and every Polling station, all the over 40,833 of them all. So the PO & Agents agree on the votes and before proceeding the PO takes the A-series documents(34A,35A,36A,37A,38A,39A) takes a pic with the KIEMS kit and transmits. Noteworthy is that the A-series documents above come in 6 carbon papers, the PO sticks one on the box, sticks one on the door of his station, the rest he gives to the Agents to use. Got it! In addition, PO sent via text updates to CRO every three hours across the day.

Constituency Returning Officer – this is the final say in each and every constituency (295 of them). His or her duty is to collect the results from the several POs in his contituency tabulates them forming the B-Series forms (34B). S/he then announce the results at that level, final for MP, MCA. The Electoral laws in effect place the results at this level FINAL! That means whatever he announces is Final, irrespective of what Chebukati says!
County Tallying Center – this is where they would pick the results from the different Constituency Returning Officers (CRO) and tabulate them altogether! Form C-Series (eg. 34C) document. They then announce winners for Governorship, Senatorial seats, Women Reps. They should then transmit the results to the National Tallying Center.

National Tallying Center – this is the famous Bomas of Kenya! Where Chebukati, Chiloba(or Chilobae) are couoed up. They receive the documents from the various IEBC agents,they compare them with the agents from the parties, these are the Chief agents who are getting information from the many of their agents on the ground. They compare, any disparity is sorted, difference are solved. The IEBC chair announces final results for the Presidency.
So dear Kenyans, got the process? See the failsafes?