A major showdown looms in the National Assembly following the introduction of the Elections (Amendment) Bill that seeks to bring back manual voter identification and transmission of poll results.
The new bill, sponsored by the Majority Leader Amos Kimunya, seeks to reduce the period for publication of the Bill from fourteen days to five.
This was largely opposed by Deputy President William Ruto’s allies who ganged up and defeated the motion prompting the proponents of the Bill to call for a vote.
A total of 62 legislators voted against the reduction of the publication period against 42.
“The results mean that the motion is defeated,” ruled Speaker Justin Muturi.
However, the proponents who are the Handshake team have to go back to the drawing board and prepare for the second reading of the Bill.
It will not be possible to change the results of a presidential election as announced at the polling station if the Elections (Amendment) Bill currently before Parliament is passed.
The passage of the Bill will make it possible for election results to be delivered physically, bringing about a big departure from the requirement that all results should be transmitted electronically.
Additionally, the Bill seeks to have the decision of the High Court on a petition filed against a governor heard and dispensed off by the High Court while that of a Member of the County Assembly (MCA) be determined by a Resident Magistrate’s court.
If enacted, the new law will also determine how the presidential election results in the August 9, 2022 General Election will be relayed.
The Bill proposes to ban live streaming of the presidential results either by television or online platforms.
Further, the Bill seeks to safeguard the transmission of the presidential results from the polling stations to the national tallying centre.
The law provides that Presiding Officers appointed by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) electronically transmit the image of the relevant form containing the presidential results to the Constituency Returning Officer (CRO).
The CRO is then required to collate the results, feed it into the relevant form, send the image and physically deliver the forms to the national tallying centre. This requirement has, however, been marred with credibility issues.
The main concern of the presidential results announced at the polling stations not tallying with those transmitted to the national tallying centre landed in the Supreme Court in the last election.
The court declared that the results announced by returning officers were not subject to review and will stand as the result.
The Bill further recommends that a Presiding Officer shall electronically transmit the image of the results in the prescribed form to the national tallying centre.
The presiding officer shall then deliver the results in person from the polling station to the constituency tallying centre.
The Constituency Returning Officer shall then collate the results in the prescribed form and deliver them in person from the polling station together with the collated form to the national tallying centre.
The Constituency Returning Officer will then transmit the tabulated results of an election of the president and deliver in person the results from his or her centre to the national tallying centre.
Under the current law, in case of an inconsistency between the electronically transmitted and the physically delivered results, the IEBC shall verify the results and the result which is an accurate record of the results tallied, verified and declared at the respective polling station shall prevail.
The Bill, however, also seeks to allow a candidate to be presented to the electorate on party primary or election ballot papers in the way in which the candidate has chosen to familiarise himself or herself to the electorate.
Currently, the law only permits the use of a candidate’s official name as it appears in the register of voters and in the candidate’s identification documents. A candidate who wishes to have his or her popular name included on a ballot paper has to go through the lengthy process of officially changing his or her name through the procedures set out under the Registration of Persons Act ,Cap107,the Registration of Documents.