IEBC issues updates on the tallying of presidetial elect

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chair Wafula Chebukati has issued an update on the status of the tallying process for the presidential election.

Chebukati said that the Constituency returning officers have already started streaming into the National Tallying Centre at Bomas of Kenya.

According to the IEBC chair, only three steps are left before the declaration of the president-elect, but he did not share how much time the exercise would take.

The constitution gives the commission 7 days to declare the results.

He thanked Kenyans for demonstrating patience during and after the voting exercise, urging them to maintain peace as IEBC gets ready to announce the winner of the presidential election.

IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati with Commissioners Abdi Guliye and Boya Molu Pulse Live Kenya

3-step verification of presidential results

Chebukati explained that at the National Tallying Centre at Bomas of Kenya, the commission was undertaking the verification of transmitted images of Form 34As against original Form 34As delivered by the returning officers.

The commission is also verifying of constituencies' Form 34Bs against their respective original Form 34As to ensure the figures are correct.

The last step will be the collation of Form 34C from the 290 Form 34Bs and checking whether the winner meets the constitutional threshold before announcing the results.

IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati issues an update from the Bomas of Kenya National Tallying Centre on August 9, 2022 Pulse Live Kenya

Media tallying centres show different figures

Chebukati also said that it was the view of the commission that media houses should collaborate and produce one single tally but, the different stations chose to pursue their operations independently.

“In the spirit of transparency, the Commission gave media access to polling stations, tallying centres and the results portal to report the progress of election results in real-time.

“The original intention was the various media houses to join hands and have a consortium through KMSWG to report on the progress of election results in real-time from one source. However, the media houses opted to do it independently, decisions beyond the Commission's control,” he said.

The IEBC chair however said that all the data on the portal was the same across media houses, attributing the different tallies to the order in which the media houses computed the data.

He then reiterated that despite the tallies, only the IEBC and he as the presidential returning officer has the mandate to declare the president-elect.