Nairobi — A consortium of civil society organizations has raised concerns over the preparedness by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to electronically transmit results in the August 2022 polls.
The activists who go by the name Angaza Movement say the recently conducted technology test by the Commission on the Result Transmission System had a lot of gaps and "failed both load testing and stress training".
The Commission conducted a trial-run on the simulation of poll results on June 9, 2022.
"The Angaza Movement is disappointed, but not surprised, that less than 60 days to the general election, this crucial piece of election technology does not work. This is the third time IEBC systems have failed performance testing, as was the case in 2013 and in 2017," they said.
In the trial run, the Commission committed to deploy satellite modems in 1, 111 polling centers outside the 3G spectrum to facilitate the electronic transmission of poll results.
The activists who are drawn from eleven organizations are however, not convinced and want the Commission to conduct another test to remove any doubt that the results transmission system will not collapse on Election Day, with possibly disastrous results.
In the second test, the activists want the Commission to test the satellite phones that will be used during the polls.
"Testing of crucial systems before deployment is a foundational pillar of operations across all sectors. In technology, performance testing is crucial," .
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"We want to be confident that with over 50,000 polling stations and some 55 days to go, the IEBC has a small opportunity to ensure there will be no system failure and that all data from all polling stations will be transmitted electronically," they said.
The activists also raised concerns on the slowness of the process arguing that a successful test would have consisted of the Commission being able to demonstrate that it is able to handle a significant load of data at the same time, as will happen on Election Day.
"Short of this, the Commission is merely ticking a box on a statutory deadline," they said.
To bolster public confidence, the Commission has asked the Commission to prepare a report and make it public on how on the identified gaps that led to this failure and how it intends to fix the lack of coverage.
The report according to them should include publicly naming and providing geo-location coordinates for all 47,000 or so polling stations that will be used in the general election.
The Commission has also been challenged to indicate the 1,111 polling stations without 3G or 4G coverage as well as the county centers from which they will transmit their results.
