IEBC misses daily voter listing target as 43pc show up

A spirited campaign by top politicians has failed to sway Kenyans out of their daily chores to register as voters as only 43 per cent of the daily target turns up for the exercise.

A registration update by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) puts the daily figures at about 86,000 or 1,830 per county.

The electoral body had hoped to register at least 200,000 voters per day or an average of 4,255 per county to hit its six million target.

“We hope that this will improve as we continue with the exercise. The commission is encouraged by the interest shown by politicians and the public in urging people to register,” said IEBC chief executive Ezra Chiloba.

At this rate, IEBC may as well end up with less than three million new voters, even less than the worst case scenario of the four million it had set.

Top politicians, both from the Opposition and government side, have camped at their strongholds to urge voters to register in large numbers.

Challenges with biometric machines were experienced in several places on the first day of the month-long exercise although IEBC said that 99 per cent of the machines worked well.

After the registration that ends on February 14, data will be compiled and cleaned before the public gets a chance from May 10 to verify their details for a month. A final register will then be out marking the final phase of preparations for the August 8 elections.

IEBC also disowned the SMS number 6363 being circulated on social media for use to verify voter registration details.

“That is not our number and even if you look at how the message is structured, it does not look like a Kenyan origin, it looks like it is from South Africa where the electoral body is abbreviated as EC. We had piloted using the code 22464 but we will be formally announcing its use once we have the relevant technicalities straightened,” Mr Chiloba said.

IEBC also plans to target diaspora voters as soon as the local listing exercise ends but there is no clear decision on which countries will be targeted and when.

Those who wait for last minute extensions were also put on notice as with the commission saying had no plans to extend the exercise beyond the February date.

“If you don’t register, you will be excluded because we have legal timelines to obey and we are not planning any extensions,” the CEO said.

There were 14.3 million voters in the 2013 General Election against a target of 18 million. IEBC began the mass listing on Monday with 15.9 million voters on the list and six million expected to boost the register to 22 million voters.