IEBC Misses Voter Listing Target By 4.5 Million

Only 1.5 million new voters were added to the register of Kenyans eligible to vote in the just-concluded National Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration (ECVR) exercise.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) kicked off the listing exercise on October 4. It was scheduled to close on November 2, however, the High Court in Eldoret extended it by a week.

In a statement to newsrooms on Tuesday night, IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati said the Commission enrolled a total of 1,519,294 new voters out of the projected target of approximately 6,000,000 eligible voters, being 25.3 per cent of the target.

Further, a total of 421,057 registered voters applied for transfer from one registration centre to another.

The IEBC boss said the Commission will subject the said 1,519,294 new voters’ record to a deduplication process that involves comparing the biometric data of the new voters with those of the existing 19,668,968 voters for purposes of eliminating any multiple records.

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In addition, the Commission will service the requests for transfer, change of particulars and deletion of dead voters from the Register of Voters (ROV).

Following the close of the ECVR exercise, Chebukati said, the Commission has resumed the Constituency office-based Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) and Revision of the Voter’s Roll.

“This will run until such a time that the Commission will publish a gazette notice suspending the CVR exercise to pave way for Biometric Verification of the ROV as required by Law,” said Chebukati.

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The CVR exercise is for; new registration, transfer of registration status, change of particulars and deletion of dead voters.

“The Commission would like to reiterate that the resumed CVR exercise is for eligible persons who have not registered as voters before. Those who registered as voters in 2017, including those who registered in the just concluded ECVR, need not register again,” he added.

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Meanwhile, the Commission plans to conduct voter registration for citizens residing outside the country for a period of fifteen (15) days from 6th to 20th December 2021.

“Prior to the commencement of the exercise, the Commission will publish in the Kenya Gazette the names of registration centres and countries in which registration and voting is scheduled to take place and the period of registration,” Chebukati added.

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