The Star (Nairobi)

Kenya: Teso Clerks Slow Voter Registration

Photo: The Star/Monicah Mwangi
A voter registration kit (file photo).

Residents of Teso yesterday complained that voter registrars were slow. Voter registration kicked off countrywide yesterday. At Teso County Council polling station in Amagoro, the first person was registered at 10am, two hours after the start of the exercise.

Pastor Patrick Etyang said he arrived at 7.30am but was not registered till 10am. The clerks said they arrived early but the offices were opened at 8.15am .

They also cited password challenges which saw them take more than two hours to access the system. Voters who went to Ang'aro, Aloete, Kolanya, Moding, Adumai and Kolait polling stations in Angurai Division did not find registration clerks.

Registration at Chamasiri polling centre started at 10.30am because the clerks were waiting for a cable. A voter, Amugu Jakait, appealed to the IEBC to hire computer-literate clerks.

JKUAT lecturer Joel Barua said IEBC's target of 18million voters might be a mirage if clerks assigned the task take more than two hours to serve a person.

"This is about lives of Kenyans and we may find ourselves in the same predicament as the 2007 polls if IEBC will not make the process very meticulous and elaborate without a rush. There should be no rush into election without fair adequate registration of people. Consequences of such actions might be catastrophic," he said.

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