In a clear-out by the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP) almost 600,000 voters were purged as members of political parties.
The ORPP employs computerised platforms to allow voters to check their status and, if necessary, resign if they are incorrectly listed.
“Political parties are supposed to use their membership register during nominations and the data about membership should be reliable,” Registrar of Political Parties Anne Nderitu stated.
Parties had enlisted members without their knowledge in what saw voters listed as members of more than one party.
The law requires political parties to submit party membership lists to the ORPP by March 26, at least 14 days before submission of the lists to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Before submitting their membership list to the ORPP for accreditation, parties will be expected to clean it up.
A political party must request a certified party register at least 21 days before the date of its party nominations, according to the law.
Deadline for party primaries has been established on April 22 by the electoral commission.
A political party is free to choose a candidate via direct or indirect nomination, according to the law.
“Through a co-operation with e-citizen, the office is cleaning up the membership registry in preparation for certification,” she added.
Individuals can use e-citizen to verify their membership status, register for political parties, and resign from them. Members can also utilise the office’s issued USSD code *509#.
“As of February 28, the number of people who accessed the system using e-citizen were more than 1.5 million while those who have resigned from political parties were more than 300,000. Those who registered as members of political parties were 205,393,” said Nderitu.
As part of the execution of a recently established regulation that says that registered party members can participate in nominations, the activity aims at weeding out double and illegal registration.