The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati has revealed the number of Kenyans who voted.

In a presser on Wednesday, August 10, the IEBC chairman said some 14,164,651 voters voted on Tuesday, August 9; representing a 64.5 per cent voter turnout.

This is out of 22.1 million registered voters.

However, Chebukati noted that the figure excluded voters who were identified using manual register in select regions where the KIEMS kits failed.

“From the kits that were transmitted, the voter turnout is 65.4%. This figure is will go higher once we compute the verification of turnout in areas that used manual voting. That figure will go up,” he said.

IEBC considers manual register

On Tuesday, the commission allowed the use of manual registers in Kakamega and Makueni counties where the KIEMS kits failed.

IEBC Vice Chairperson Juliana Cherera noted that the regions had experienced a malfunction of  KIEMS kits and they had approved the use of the manual voters register in select areas of Makueni and Kakamega counties.

She said that 84 polling stations in Kibwezi constituency and 54 polling stations in Malava, Matungu, Mumias East and Mumias West constituencies were affected by the KIEMS kits’ malfunction.

“Our ICT officers are on the ground, and when they are called upon in the polling station, they ascertain its failure of the kit and not any other failure

“In this case, it has been ascertained as the commissioners have written emails and therefore have been given the leeway to use manual register,” Cherera said.

Plenty of KIEMS kits

In July, IEBC commissioner Abdi Guliye said the commission had doubled the number of the kits in case some fail to work.

“This time we are saying instead of three kits as were the case in 2017 per ward, we have doubled them to six kits. If there is a total failure, we will replace the kits

“If it fails, we will bring the third kit. Assuming all the kits are not working, that is the time when we can revert to a manual register,” he said.