NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 2 – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) mounted a fierce defense of its results transmission system following surprise astonishing allegations that the infrastructure whose security the agency termed as military-grade had been infiltrated.
Lawyer Julie Soweto while making a rejoinder for the lead petitioner in the consolidated presidential election petition made the claim as she sought to demonstrate to the court the alleged infiltration of IEBC’s election results portal citing a form where the name of a foreigner featured.
She told the seven-judge bench that one Jose Camargo, a Venezuelan national working for Smartmatic International, a firm contracted by the electoral body to provide election technology, had access to the portal and that he altered results.
“This person is the one who was interfering with the results. This is on the 9th August and we were told they were not there,” she said.
But in a rebuttal following a contest a fierce contest between the petitioners and respondents on whether the new submission comprised new evidence that would be time-barred, and whether the respondents could be granted an opportunity to respond, IEBC demonstrated that the name of the foreigner in question was captured as an overlay in the results form in question.
“I want to produce the original Form 34A and I want to inform the court that the name Jose Camargo on that form is an overlay,” IEBC lawyer Mahat Somane told the Supreme Court on Friday.
Somane went on to explain that the overlay was part of register printouts which were part of non-strategic election materials distributed countrywide across all the polling stations.
“The register of the QR code printed by Smartmatic International was printed in the name of Jose Camargo,” Samone said.
He told the court presided over by Chief Justice Martha Koome (President of the Court) that the presiding officer in the said polling station placed Form 34A on top of the said register hence the image/form featuring Carmago’s name.
Somane dismissed assertions by Soweto as untrue and a deliberate attempt to mislead the court.
On Thursday, Somane led IEBC’s legal team in dismissing server infiltration claims through what the petitioners termed as a well-orchestrated scheme to intercept results forms sent as JPEG files, edit them before uploading them as PDF files with doctored results to favour President-Elect William Ruto, whose victory the petitioners have challenged.
Somane said the argument by the lead petitioner — Raila Odinga — was misleading explaining that the Kenya Integrated Election Management System (KIEMS) kits deployed to over 46,000 polling stations had an onboard imaging software that automatically transformed images of forms taken into PDF before transmission to the central server.
“The kit takes an image, imbedded in it (the kit) is a scanner so the image is scanned as a PDF. We don’t have any other output,” Somane told the 7-judge panel of the Supreme Court.
He praised the security of KIEMS infrastructure describing it as military-grade saying it was designed to operate on a blockchain system making it impenetrable.
“The kit actually tells the Presiding Officer to retake the image if it is not clear, he then presses send and even without network the image cannot be recalled. The (queued) form then hits the portal whenever the kit gains connectivity,” Somane said.
“Our system is so good because it is based on blockchain and it gives resources as required based on the number of people accessing the portal,” he added.
Somane told the court the server was also equipped with a verification mechanism that ensured the serial numbers of forms from specific polling stations are valid before they are admitted into the portal.
“Those forms answer some jurisdiction questions before they are admitted into the portal. The portal verifies the polling station code as well as the serial number of the kit deployed to the specific polling station,” Somane clarified.
He dismissed forms provided by the petitioners as doctored and “forgeries and bad forgeries at that.”
IEBC noted that forms admitted into the portal were assigned two security features namely: a date and a time stamp.
Justices Koome (Chief Justice), Philomena Mwilu (Deputy Chief Justice), Mohammed Ibrahim, Smokin Wanjala, Njoki Ndungu, Isaac Lenaola and William Ouko were set to deliver the count’s verdict on Monday, following the conclusion of a three-day hearing on Friday.
