The activist is also asking the court to compel the IEBC to register voters using birth certificates and expired passports since many eligible voters had been unable to register due to lack of IDs/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 16 – The High Court is Thursday expected to hear a suit filed by Activist Okiyah Omtatah seeking to have voter registration closed two months to the General Election.
The IEBC was on Tuesday ordered to extend the registration by two days to facilitate the hearing.
The activist is also asking the court to compel the IEBC to register voters using birth certificates and expired passports since many eligible voters had been unable to register due to lack of IDs.
He wants the court to declare that a single database of citizens should be used to transact all affairs affecting Kenyans.
According to Omtatah, separate registrations for examinations, Identity Cards, Kenya Revenue Authority PIN numbers and passports are unreasonable and a waste of public funds.
He also argues that without full disclosure, it is impossible to tell how the IEBC estimated targets for registering voters in various parts of the country independent of Executive mischief to suppress voters in some areas.
He wants to know how IEBC used the official data of the adult population from the Directorate of Immigration and Registration of Persons based on the 2009 census.
The activist says IEBC should use accurate data provided by the Directorate of Immigration and Registration of Persons on the estimated number of adults living in each county or constituency.
He goes on to argue that IEBC needed to break out of the Executive’s choke-hold by letting the public know how widespread the discriminatory issuance of IDs was and how it disenfranchised the unsuspecting citizens.
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