The Elections Observation Group (ELOG) monitoring Kenya’s General Election stated that its parallel vote tally matches the official figures that was released by IEBC on Monday evening.
ELOG Chairperson Anne Ireri on Tuesday, August 16, said the presidential poll results by the electoral body are in agreement with the observer group’s Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT).
Moreover, IEBC declared William Samoei Arap Ruto as the duly elected President of Kenya.
The commission’s chair stated that Ruto garnered 7,176,141 votes, representing 50.49 percent of the total votes.
Raila Odinga on the other hand got 6,942,930 votes representing 48 percent of the votes cast.
Likewise, ELOG said its PVT placed Ruto’s score at 50.7 percent while Odinga scored 48.7 percent, indicating a (+/-) 2.1% margin of error for both candidates.
“ELOG’s PVT estimates are consistent with IEBC’s results for the 2022 presidential election. In light of our assessment of election day processes, and given that IEBC figures fall within the projected ranges, the PVT results therefore corroborates the official results,” Ms. Ireri stated.
Similarly, Ireri noted that the observer group’s projection for the final voter turnout was 65.1 percent against IEBC’s official turnout of 65.4 percent.
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Moreover, ELOG lauded the exercise in general saying it is an improvement from the 2017 General Election.
Moreover, ELOG specifically lauded media freedom and access to information as some of the admirable aspects in the process.
“There has been access to information throughout the election cycle, we have not seen any interruption of social media and traditional media,” said Ms. Ireri.
However ELOG identified several aspects in need of improvement.
For instance, ensuring transparency and integrity in maintenance of the voter register, including providing full access to the KPMG audit report and clear status updates on the uptake of the recommendations from the report.
“Ensuring that the results transmission is clear and understandable to the stakeholders, and that the commission shares with its citizens the final election results in a granular and machine-readable format,” she noted.
Nonetheless ELOG deployed 5,108 observers to tallying centers countrywide to assess the integrity and general conduct of the electoral process.
Out of the 5,108, 3,050 were general observers while 1,000 Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) observers assumed the role of stationery observers on election day.
