Nairobi — The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has allowed the usual of the Manual Voters Register in select areas of Makueni and Kakamega counties due to technological failure of the Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kit.
Speaking during a press conference, IEBC Vice Chairperson Juliana Cherera outlined 84 polling stations in Kibwezi Constituency and 54 polling stations in polling stations in Malava, Matungu,Mumias East and Mumias West constituencies.
"Our ICT officers are on the ground and when they are called upon in the polling station they ascertain that its failure of the kit and not any other failure," she stated.
"In this case it has been ascertained as the commissioners have written emails and therefore have been given the leeway to use manual register," Cherera said.
According to the commission, the technological hitches should not be a reason to raise alarm on the conduct of the general elections as the issues have been cited on a small fraction of the polling stations.
"What we have received is 200 failures of KIEMS kit of 46,229.Its not widespread, technology do breakdown and when they do we have mechanism of rectify it. That's normal and there is nothing ideal out of it," said IEBC commissioner Justus Nyaganya
