National Elections - 2027!

2027 Elections: My Prayer to I.E.B.C

The Kenyan Government in the recent times went on a digitization program to automate and provide Kenyan Citizens all Services under one Roof efficiently and with minimum Human Intervention. The E-citizen Portal has been fairly successful in dispensing the once Manual (Human Influenced, Manipulated, Controlled) and Prehistoric Mode of service delivery to Kenyans. The process is fast and under minimal human interference; though few stages are held hostage by human necessary input for clearance like in the Lands Online Ardhisasa Portal; where Manual Scanning of documents is exploited so as for the applications to be pushed ahead; if one does not oblige (like in a manner we all know) …then its status quo. We also have County Governments like Mombasa who have automated a lot of the processes; but still requiring manual inputs and clearances in many areas that are susceptible to obvious one eye blinking scenarios. My point is; taking the above good scenarios in mind; we should now gun for 100% automation so as to remove the human interference and make it corruption proof. That will be the real service to Kenyans and Visitors investing in Kenya!

Coming to our National Elections – the same can’t be said as why we are toiling and struggling (for obvious reasons) with a system that can be easy to manipulate, slow and inaccurate due to the excessive human input and process. Why in the World can’t we go the USA or India way of totally digitizing the entire elections via electronic devices and the internet. We have 900 Million (India) and 150 Million (USA) voters respectively in both of the largest democracies voting for their leaders and getting almost accurate results within a day! Are Kenyans that happy with a gullible system that allows wishful outcomes that result in a party always not accepting the results by the earlier - ECK (Electoral Commission of Kenya) or the latest but not the last - IEBC (Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission). Whatever the Parliament enacted and approved independent (in real retrospect) electoral body; its main mandate has to be to deliver free and fair national elections that are timely, unanimously accepted and accurate. A now wise man told me recently that; any election is actually decided during counting process and heavily worked on before the uploading of the famous 34 ABC Forms. Being a agent in Kenya is a master stroke of luck that favour few every five years and its time to really milk aspirants (cows) firstly during campaigns by prophesizing that they control block voters based on areas or ethnic backgrounds, they then ask for lump sum amounts to influence the voters to vote for the aspirant all the way to the ballot on voting day. They cheer and chest thump glorifying the aspirant so as to keep “milking”. Mind you; funerals, baby showers, hospital bills, weddings, school fees, facilitations are all smartly asked and the aspirant is coerced into paying. The same aspirant after winning will want to have tenfold returns of his “investment” during the 5 year tenure at the expense of necessary national or ward development. The last nail is banged during the counting process of votes where they delay the process in order to be influenced by the highest bidder who may come late night to warm their pockets and they may retire until the next elections.

I have personally experienced this (as an aspirant) during both 2017 and 2022 elections; I also experienced the same from the other side of the voting in 2007 and 2013 as an appointed elections officer while at the Allidina Visram School Polling Station in Mvita, Mombasa County. I had to deal with such maneuvers by people with influence and money bags for the first time while religiously following the process that I was trained for. We did well with few of my colleagues who didn’t budge or bow to bullying and delivered the accurate possible result for the station. It’s time for Kenya to invest in a modern election system like other developed countries in order to protect democracy and good name internationally. There have been good offers to Kenya to provide the technology by countries who have conducted their elections in a free and fair manner; but we somehow end up messing it and branding it as non-functional and revert to the blessed manual register system for obvious convenience; that has to stop! It’s time to invest the tax payers billions in a modern electoral system that offers a near accurate result. Such cannot be just wished; but has to be ratified by the People of Kenya for the People of Kenya!    

Case of Indian Elections: Electronic Voting is the standard means of conducting elections using Electronic Voting Machines, sometimes called "EVMs" in India. The use of EVMs and electronic voting was developed and tested by the state-owned Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics in the 1990s. They were introduced in Indian elections between 1998 and 2001, in a phased manner. Prior to the introduction of electronic voting, India used paper ballots and manual counting. The paper ballots method was widely criticized because of fraudulent voting and booth capturing, where party loyalists captured booths and stuffed them with pre-filled fake ballots. The printed paper ballots were also more expensive, requiring substantial post-voting resources to count hundreds of millions of individual ballots. Embedded EVM features such as "electronically limiting the rate of casting votes to five per minute", a security "lock-close" feature, an electronic database of "voting signatures and thumb impressions" to confirm the identity of the voter, conducting elections in phases over several weeks while deploying extensive security personnel at each booth have helped reduce electoral fraud and abuse, eliminate booth capturing and create more competitive and fairer elections. Indian EVMs are stand-alone machines built with once write, read-only memory. The EVMs are produced with secure manufacturing practices, and by design, are self-contained, battery-powered and lack any networking capability. They do not have any wireless or wired internet components and interface. The M3 version of the EVMs includes the VVPAT system.

The Election Commission of India states that their machines, system checks, safeguard procedures, and election protocols are "fully tamper-proof". A team led by Mr. Vemuri Hari Prasad of NetIndia Private Limited has shown that if criminals get physical possession of the EVMs before the voting, they can change the hardware inside and thus manipulate the results. The Prasad team recommended a VVPAT paper trail system for verification. The Election Commission states that along with VVPAT method, immediately prior to the election day, a sample number of votes for each political party nominee is entered into each machine, in the presence of polling agents. At the end of this sample trial run, the votes counted and matched with the entered sample votes, to ensure that the machine's hardware has not been tampered with, it is operating reliably and that there were no hidden votes pre-recorded in each machine. Machines that yield a faulty result have been replaced to ensure a reliable electoral process.

Our research study published in 2017 measured the impact of using EVMs on electoral fraud, democracy, and development in India. The phased roll-out of the EVMs in state assembly elections in India and the timing of the assembly elections (the Constitution of India mandates that state elections be held every five years) allowed us to determine the causal impact of EVMs on electoral fraud and democracy. Using a novel identification strategy—intra- and interstate variations—for state assembly election results from 1976 to 2007 and post-poll survey data, the study provides strong evidence that the introduction of EVMs led to (i) a significant decline in electoral fraud, (ii) strengthening the weaker and vulnerable sections of the society, and (iii) a more competitive electoral process.

Under the paper ballot system, polling booths would often be captured and ballot boxes would be stuffed, resulting in an unusually high voter turnout. EVMs helped tackle this risk by incorporating an important feature registering only five votes per minute. Committing electoral fraud would require capturing polling booths for longer periods. Further, the study also finds a significant decline in electoral fraud in politically sensitive states where electoral rigging led to frequent re-polls.

The complexity level of technology used for the administration of elections around the world varies enormously. The rate of technological change is so high that election management bodies (EMBs) like IEBC; must regularly re-evaluate their use of technology to determine whether they should adopt new or updated technology to improve their performance. This Elections and Technology (ET) topic area aims to assist IEBC in this task by:

§  describing technologies that are currently being used for electoral processes

§  presenting guidelines for the evaluation, choice and implementation of new technologies

§  providing examples of so-called best practices in the use of technology as well as examples where technology has not lived up to expectations

§  examining some of the emerging technologies and trends to identify those that may apply to elections in the near future

Time frames for implementing new technology need to be carefully studied and defined:

§  to consult with stakeholders

§  to identify and evaluate needs

§  to evaluate and select specific technology to be adopted

§  to implement the new system

§  to test the system features and outcomes in order to make sure that it works properly when needed

§  to train the users of the system

If IEBC is considering the use of new technology for election purposes, it might want to start by looking at technology currently in use for similar purposes, who is using it and what issues have arisen in its use. The Elections and Technology topic area looks at three main categories of technologies, with sub-categories, currently in use around the world:

§  Communications: Telecommunications, Radio, Networks and the Internet.

§  Computer Hardware and Software: Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Database Management Systems.

§  Other technologies: Specialized Electronic and Mechanical Devices, Non-electronic Innovations and Materials.

This is followed by a review of technologies used within specific electoral administration, such as:

§  Boundary Administration

§  Technology for Voter Registration

§  Technology for Regulation of Party and Candidates

§  Technology for Reaching Voters

§  Technology for Voting Operations

§  Technology for Corporate Management

The ET topic area also looks at issues related to the use of technology, such as management of technology and trends that may affect the future use of technology in elections.

These guiding principles are:

§  take a holistic view of the new technology

§  consider the impact of introducing new technologies

§  maintain transparency and ensure ethical behavior while adopting new technology

§  consider the security issues related to the new technology

§  test the accuracy of results produced by the use of technology

§  ensure privacy

§  ensure inclusiveness

§  consider the technology cost-effectiveness

§  evaluate efficiency

§  evaluate sustainability

§  evaluate the flexibility of the technology to adapt to new election regulations

§  consider the service provided to the users and their trust in the new technology

With that I rest my prayer and strongly will that it be heard and implemented for the sole betterment of Kenya.

Mr. Rishi Arun Parikh

Editor – Madafu Newspaper

Criminologist – P.C.A.K

Educationist – Yaris Education

Mvita 2007 Polling Observer

Mvita 2013 Election Security

MP Mvita 2017 Independent Candidate

MP Mvita 2022 KADU Asili Candidate