By Sarah Omondi
“We are satisfied that IEBC carried out verification, tallying and declaration of results in accordance with the constitution,” Supreme Court President Justice Martha Koome said while reading out the unanimous decision.
While it is true Kiems kits failed in 235 polling stations, 86, 889 voters were given the right to vote manually and required form 32As were dully filled.
There was no evidence of an intruder in the server and to show that IEBC and Chebukati were involved and that IEBC systems were breached.
The court ordered scrutiny of form 34As and there was no significant differences between those uploaded on portal and those delivered at the National Tallying centre in Bomas and no credible evidence was given to show the agents’ forms were different.
We find that postponement (of elections) was due to mix-up of ballot papers and not in bad faith and was not influenced by anyone. We are satisfied that it was occasioned by a genuine mistake, which could have been avoided by IEBC who even went to witness printing in Greece.
Other factors could have also contributed to low voter turnout which it is our finding affected all the six elective positions.
Discrepancies between votes cast for President and other positions: we find that there were no unexplainable variances and no document was produced to proof voter stuffing.
None of the parties has flagged anything significant that would have affected the outcome of the poll.
The power to tally and verify is not a preserve of IEBC Chair but the Commission’s. The four dissenting commissioners were active during tallying and verification from the beginning until before the declaration.
The four did not provide any document in court to show that the elections were altered. Are we to nullify an election on the basis on last minute rapture whose details remain scanty? This we cannot do.
How can we upset an election that Kenyans participated without any hindrance? The current dysfunctionality doesn’t affect the conduct of the 2022 elections. Notwithstanding the differences, we find that IEBC carried out the tallying and verification in accordance with the constitution.
Rejected votes cannot be taken into account in determining whether a Presidential candidate attained the constitutional 50 percent plus one.
We are not persuaded by Law Society of Kenya who attempted to persuade us to review our position on exclusion of rejected votes in computing the total votes cast.
The court finds that there was no evidence submitted to show that President elect William Ruto did not achieve 50 percent plus one vote and it is our finding that the declared President attained the required threshold.
We are of the view that the pointed irregularities were not of magnitude to affect the outcome of the Presidential election.
The court has dismissed the E005 petition and declared election of Dr Ruto as valid.
