The Star (Nairobi)

Kenya: IEBC Assures Public Over Transmission Hitches

Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission CEO James Oswago has said the the Electronic Result Transmission System used to relay results from polling centres experienced a hitch.

Oswago said the system was operating smoothly from 6 pm when most polling centres closed but as of 9 30 pm the system began to experience what was thought to be "network problems," but IEBC engineers later discovered the cause to be a "disk space issue on one of the servers,"

Oswago has assured the public that the IEBC engineers have dealt with the matter by providing "additional capacity to the server" which has enabled full transmission of results.

He said chief agents of political parties and their ICT experts have been fully briefed about the issue and ICT experts of the various experts have been working with the IEBC to find a permanent solution to the problem.

The IEBC ceo said the commission has received results from 5,000 polling centres while 28,000 centres are yet to transmit results. He assured kenyans that the the commission has nothing to hide stating that there are "no intermediate places where technical issues can hide,"

Oswago's statement comes after ODM expressed dissatisfaction with the voting process across the country. ODM chair of the national election board Franklin Bett said that voting in some areas began "on the wrong footing" as the polling book used to register voters forcing officials to identify voters manually.

He added that the IEBC server in various centres also collapsed for close to 6 hours in some polling centres but the IEBC did not give voters in these halls an explanation stating that this will affect the credibility of the process.

Bett also said polling is still ongoing in various centres in Ongata Rongai, Kiminini and Kitale constituency long after midnight.

Bett said that the IEBC had given an assurance that voting will only be extended until 12 am in areas that have experienced delays or long queues.

Bett said that it is a "violation" for IEBC to relay results while polling is still ongoing saying that these will influence voters how are yet to cast their ballots.

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