The Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission has increased the number of presidential ballot papers to beyond 1% that the commission had earlier informed the candidates and the Kenyan public.
IEBC had claimed the reason for the extra ballots will be to allow for situations where a voter spoils his ballot and needs to vote again. This reason is itself very controversial, as it is only allowed on the presidential vote.
It therefore appears IEBC seems to be telling Kenyans that the presidential vote is more important than the other elections, a position not supported by any known law.
The discretion is also highly likely to be abused, considering that one only needs one more vote after the 50% mark to qualify for a presidential win.
Kenyans who had done the math claim figure IEBC has released as the total number of the presidential ballots is more than 5% of the total registered voters.
Add to the fact that between the printing of ballot and the election day there will be nearly 100,000 adult deaths and that even the current voter register had its own thousands of ghost voters, excess ballots in this election is near one million.
Who benefits from their potential misuse?
Follow the embedded IEBC tweet below and get more interactions from hundreds of Kenyans disputing the IEBC math.
20,818,000 Presidential ballot papers, in 416,360 booklets, arrive on 31st and 1st. Sum is inclusive of 1% provision in case of spoilt vote
— IEBC (@IEBCKenya) July 29, 2017
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