Photo: IEBC/Facebook The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will hold a mock election on February 18 in all 1,450 wards in the country.
The IEBC officer charged with coordinating the commission's voter education efforts Nixon Ng'ang'a says the exercise is meant to guard against a high number of spoilt votes in the March 4 general election.
"We've set aside a national day on the February 18 so the whole nation will be taken through a simulation of the voting procedure including marking the ballot and the transmission of results. We are going to identify a polling station in each of the County Assembly Wards."
"We witnessed 218,000 rejected ballot paper in 2010 in the referendum. We've also been witnessing a pretty high number of rejected ballots in various by elections that we've held so far."
Ng'ang'a says the risk of a high number of spoilt votes will be compounded in the general election because it will be the first time in Kenya's history that Kenyans will be required to vote for six (and not three) elective positions.
"Our fear is that if we do not conduct very elaborate voter education specifically on how to mark the ballot paper then with the challenge of expanded election that the new constitution poses, we'd probably magnify the problem of rejected ballots."
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