Nairobi — The Elections Observation Group (ELOG) has renewed its call for an independent audit of the Register of Voters (RoV) urging the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to allow it access to the voters' roll.
ELOG made the call on Wednesday citing discrepancies exposed in its own audits in 2012 and 2017 and KPMG's 2017 audit.
The non-profit backed proposals by the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) to either clean up the voter register or create a fresh RoV ahead of the 2027 General Election.
In an apparent reference to voter fraud claims by media owner SK Macharia on Saturday, ELOG, which has monitored Kenya's electoral processes since 2010, said there is an urgent need to verify the integrity of the register, especially as the country prepares for the reconstitution of the electoral commission.
"It is evident that while due processes of registering, compiling, updating, auditing, cleaning, and certifying the Register of Voters have been a consistent feature, persistent errors and anomalies remain deeply concerning," ELOG stated.
The group pointed to evidence of systemic weaknesses within the IEBC's voter database management uncovered in previous audits.
In 2012, ELOG flagged 143,530 errors during an assessment of the register used for the 2010 referendum, while a similar exercise in 2017 found 169,646 duplicate records -- despite the IEBC having conducted its own cleanup ahead of that year's elections.
Further, ELOG highlighted unresolved concerns over the presence of deceased voters in the 2017 RoV.
Deceased voters
An audit by KPMG raised the alarm over the possible inclusion of as many as 1,037,260 dead voters in the register -- a problem exacerbated by the Registrar of Births and Deaths' failure to provide an official list of the deceased.
"The issue of updating the voter register, especially regarding the removal of deceased voters, has been problematic," the group stated.
While acknowledging that biometric systems such as the KIEMS kits have minimized some of these risks, ELOG noted that the continued use of manual voter identification in certain polling stations still leaves room for manipulation.
"Despite not auditing the 2022 RoV, ELOG observed that there were concerns about voter transfers, cleaning, and certification of the final register that were not properly addressed by the IEBC," the non-profit stated.
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ELOG endorsed NADCO's recent proposal recommending that the incoming commission urgently evaluate the credibility of the current register and either conduct a thorough cleanup or create a fresh RoV well before the 2027 elections.
"We are in agreement with NADCO that this process must involve robust public participation and stakeholder engagement," ELOG emphasized.
The observer group's renewed bid for direct access to the register to conduct its own independent audit and verification process comes amid growing concerns about the credibility of the register after SK Macharia stirred public debate on the integrity of the voters register in the 2007, 2013, 2017 and 2022 elections.
Macharia claimed he pointed out inconsistencies in the voters' roll to four IEBC Commissioners ahead of the 2022 General Election, but Raila Odinga's campaign ignored him.
"In the 2022 General Election, we went to Naivasha to strategise for Raila's candidacy. At Naivasha, I tried to explain that the voter register [to be] used was fraudulent, but Raila was impatient," he said.
