NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 8 – The Interim Independent Electoral Commission (IIEC) says it has registered 12.6 million Kenyans to vote in the August 4 referendum, failing to beat the 2007 figures by 1.6 million voters.
According to the final statistics released by the IIEC on Tuesday, Nairobi recorded the highest number of voters, while Garissa/Ijara registered the least.
There were 14.2 million registered voters in 2007.
“At the close of the registration and after the cleaning up exercise we have registered 12,656,451 Kenyans. The region that was leading is Nairobi with 1.3 million and the region with lowest number of voters is Garissa/Ijara with 76,563 voters,” said Ahmed Issack Hassan, the IIEC Chairman.
He also explained that the tally had gone down from provisional figures due to cases of double registration. He added that the Voter Register Inspection process would kick off this Friday.
“For example Ayub Khan from Mvita has registered more than once; in fact he is even (seen) wearing different clothes. Here he has a Kanzu…here he has a shirt…he’s wearing different things. He has registered one, two, three, four…nine times!” he said.
The electoral commission further announced that the voters’ register would remain open for public scrutiny for the next 30 days within which enrolled voters will be required to visit their registration points and ensure their details are in order.
Mr Hassan said those who failed to correct double registration anomalies within the 30-day grace period would be deleted from the register and would not be allowed to vote at the referendum.
“So we want to appeal to our fellow Kenyans who have registered more than once to please surrender the additional voter’s card because you won’t use it,” said Mr Hassan.
He further said that those with more than one voter’s card would be required to surrender them to their registration clerks.
“Under the law it is actually illegal to register twice deliberately. They should go back to our officers and say “okay I am giving back this voters’ card which was additional and I want to maintain this card for this station” so that we (IIEC) can know they have selected a particular polling station,” he said.
Forty nine percent of the newly registered voters were women while 59 percent were under the age of 40.
“North Rift recorded the highest number of women voters followed by Nyeri and lower Eastern region. Wajir had the lowest number of women registered,” he said.
The commission will continue with the voter registration process once the referendum is over. It will also continue receiving regular updates from the Provincial Administration regarding Kenyans who have died in every electoral area. This information will be used to regularly update the register.
For the inspection process, the IIEC will use Sh25 million and only one clerk will be appointed at every registration point.
About The Author
