Monitors blame inadequate education for rejected votes

International election observers have blamed the inadequate voter education for the high number of rejected votes.

The observers from African Union, European Union and the Commonwealth also expressed concern over the failure by electronic voter identification kits in nearly half of the polling centres they visited during the March 4 General Election.

The heads of the missions said in separate preliminary findings that the different colours used for the ballots were not significantly distinct to help voters identify correct ballot box.

They said the holding of six elections at the same time also contributed to the high number of rejected ballots which were either spoilt or cast in wrong boxes.

“It is noted that the number of invalid votes is quite high. This is not unforeseeable given the complexity of the voting process and the relatively late effort by the IEBC’s (Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission) voter education campaign,” said former Botswana president Festus Mogae, the chairperson of Commonwealth Observer Group.

He said poor lighting in some polling stations, booths and ballot colour contributed largely to the high number of rejected ballots.

EU Election Observation Mission chief Alojz Peterle said there was little evidence of effective voter education even after IEBC launched its own programmes and accredited other organisations to do so.

IEBC on Tuesday clarified that rejected votes would be included in the total number of votes cast when calculating whether a presidential candidate had received majority votes to be declared elected, according to the law.

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The Constitution requires that a presidential candidate gunners 50 plus one of the votes cast and polls 25 per cent in more than half of the 47 counties to win in the first round of General Election.

If no candidate meets the requirement, the two who gunner most votes face off within 30 days where a simple majority victory carries the day.

As at 3pm Wednesday, the number of rejected votes stood at about 350,000 votes in the presidential tally.

The observer groups Wednesday said use of technology to relay information to tallying centres was the way to go to make elections in Africa credible.

“Some of the confidence building advantages of technology could have been achieved by more frequent communications to electorate and precise published procedures covering all stages of the electoral process,” the EU said.

Mr Mogae said the technical hitches in the IEBC’s electronic results transmission system were excusable given the experience in Ghana.