IEBC: Law does not ban live streaming of results
By Irene.Githinji, February 23, 2022Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) yesterday clarified that the Elections (Amendment) Bill 2022 does not scrap live relaying of election results as widely claimed.
The proposed amendments, according to IEBC only seeks to create a pathway for the statutory results form at the polling station to be physically sent to the national tallying centre.
IEBC commissioner Abdi Guliye said the election results management will remain transparent and secure.
“Results as announced at the polling station are final. The amendment, which has generated debate, seeks to create a result path for the form,” said Guliye, who spoke at a Nairobi hotel during a workshop on preparedness for elections.
Create process
The new law creates a complementary mechanism in areas where live dissemination of polls is impossible, he said.
It also stipulates that elections results are contained in the election results declaration form with IEBC verifying the results by comparing the original physical forms as transmitted from polling stations.
“You have taken the image of the form and the actual form is left with the presiding officer, so what is the fate of this form? It is very simple like that,” he explained.
Guliye said results announced at the polling stations will be final.
He said the results are then put in the statutory forms in a process that is open to agents, observers and media.
Once the statutory forms are signed, the presiding officer is supposed to transmit the results from the polling station to the constituency and subsequently to the national tallying centre.
“The digital form has already been transmitted to national tallying centre. The presiding officer will be required to take that form to the constituency tallying centre. In a constituency, we have many tallying centres and presiding officers so each of them is expected to take that physical form to the constituency tallying centre where it would be received by the returning officer,” he added.
He said the Constituency Returning Officer (CRO) will then do a summary tally of the results contained in each of the polling station results form by generating a form.
The CRO will not only be required to transmit digitally the form generated but will also have to collect the presiding officer’s result form from the constituency and then together with the original form, it will be taken to the national tallying centre.
“The only thing the Commission has said is that there will be no digital tally owing to complaints raised in 2017 but physically verified results will be relayed,” he added.
Earlier this month, IEBC dismissed reports that the Bill seeks to scrap live streaming of poll results, ban live broadcast of poll results and return the voting system to manual voter identification and transmission of poll results.