What the IEBC Will Have To Explain in Court Regarding the Presidential Election Petition

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is anticipated to respond to the complaints filed alleging electoral irregularities and an unfair victory for William Ruto, the presidential candidate of the UDA party.

There have been questions over whether the IEBC Chairman violated the Constitution by omitting four commissioners from the counting and declaration of the winner, as well as whether the IEBC procedure was fair.infiltrated to favor the election's overall victor.

Respondents in the case must submit comments between Wednesday and Saturday prior to the status conference, which is scheduled on Tuesday of next week. There have been 8 petitions submitted thus far, one of which was submitted by Raila Odinga, the leading candidate. Two other important contributions come from activists Okiya Omtata and Khelef Khalifa.

Odinga asserts that Chebukati tampered with the electoral process to favor his major rival William Ruto and that the results made public were false.

He notably criticizes Chebukati for making the statement before the results from 27 constituencies had been totaled and the accompanying forms 34A had been submitted to allow for easier public inspection.

The chairman of the IEBC has consistently been accused in petitions.claimed that he purposefully abused the authority granted to the panel during the counting of the presidential election, verifying and announcing the results without consulting his fellow commissioners.

Based on the 2017 Maina Kiai case ruling, Raila Odinga, the four IEBC commissioners who rejected the presidential election results, and a number of petitioners argue that Chebukati should have included all of the commissioners in the tallying and verification of the final result before declaring the results.

The IEBC is expected to address the issue in its arguments, and the bench is anticipated to provide clarification on whether the commission as a whole or only the chairman is responsible for tallying and verifying the results.

In aChebukati turned the tables on the dissenters in a statement made public last week, accusing them of trying to pressure him to change the results to show that none of the candidates had achieved the constitutional requirement to necessitate a run-off.

The electoral technology used in the election on August 9th is one of the primary topics on which the IEBC is anticipated to present a defense; specifically, the question of whether it gave the person in possession of it the advantage to influence the results of the elections.

Khelef Khalifa claimed that the commission's failure to secure its systems left it open to hacking and manipulation, which compromised the outcome.

"Technological hiccups that characterized the August election revealed that IEBC utilized afragile and poor technology in the polls consequently failing to provide a democratic exercise”

Additionally, the accuracy of the voter list used for the election will be tested. Khalifa notes here the KPMG audit's conclusions, which revealed important concerns like: Were all duplicate voters eliminated?

They mentioned the discovery of 481, 711 duplicate registrations in their submission, which included passages from the KPMG reports, and added that by the time the audit ended in June, 30% of those registrations, or 144,674, had not been deactivated.

Only 24% of the additional 4, 757 voters who had previously registered were deactivated. 164,269 voters were also reported by KPMG as having invalid documentation, of which 89% had not yet been deactivated.

The petitioner mentions The number of duplicated people, 487,711, was sufficient to reduce the gap between the top two and perhaps change the figures that would have negated the 50%+1 threshold.

While the IEBC chairman and inspector general of police casually declared that the matter had been resolved, the arrest of the three Venezuelans who were discovered to be in possession of election materials was swept under the rug. However, the matter is now set to resurface in court, and the IEBC is expected to clarify their role because the issues raised doubts about their credibility.

The commission will also address the trust gap it is experiencing as a result of the division that occurred at the conclusion of the election.

Prof. Githu Muigai, a former attorney general, will oversee the legal team for the IEBC, which consists of attorneys. They have collaborated on prior petitions with the commission.