Nairobi — The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has defended the difference between the presidential vote and those of other elective seats saying the arithmetic is justified to be off within between 20,000 and 30,000.
The lead petitioner Raila Odinga had raised issues with the difference saying it occasioned to rigging but IEBC defended itself saying the difference would be accounted for in measure stray ballot.
While replying to the question of Justice William Ouko on why there was a vote difference between the presidential vote and how many ballots constitute to a stray ballot, IEBC Counsel Mahaat Somane told the court that analysis done in Kibra and Makadara polling station showed that a vote difference between 10,000 and 20,000 was well within range but anything above that would be questionable.
The analysis showed an average of two stray ballot per ballot box which would amount to 92,000 stray ballot across the country.
"I did the analysis in Kibera and Makadara and its 2 per polling station which gives you 92,000 across the country shared between the different polling boxes," said Somane.
Somane told the 7 judge bench that the scrutiny report by the registrar of Judiciary that sampled ballots in the 41 polling stations further outlined the same.
"If there is a variance of 40,000-50,000 then the court can question that but everything below that is well within range," he said.
The IEBC counsel affirmed that there were no instance where a voter voted for only one candidate and hence the variance in the votes for the presidential and any other elective seat can only be accounted using either the rejected ballot or stray ballot .
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On Wednesday,Odinga counsel said there were unexplained discrepancies in the total number of votes cast for different positions in the same areas.
He has cited Kirinyaga County where he claimed some 23,000 more people voted for the president than for the governor.
But a live stream of the count shows that the returning officer failed to mention just over 22,000 votes for one of the candidates standing in the governor's election.
In other areas, Odinga's team claims the votes for the president were actually lower than those for other positions, he said was practically improbable scenario.
Odinga argued that variations in the numbers of spoiled ballots might account for some of the difference and that prisoners are only allowed to vote for the president - and not for any other positions - but that wouldn't make a huge difference.
