Less than a month before the next general elections on August 9, Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei and his nominated counterpart Wilson Sossion have insisted on the need by the IEBC to only use a digital register and not revert back to manual registers.
Addressing the press on Saturday, July 9, the former KNUT Secretary-General said one of the factors that led to the cancellation of presidential elections in 2017 was the use of manual registers.
According to Sossion, a manual register could be used to mess up general elections, leading to a similar ruling made by the Supreme Court in 2017.
He insisted on the need for digital registers, saying this is the only way that will remove irregularities and create confidence in the electoral process.
"Our voting system should be digitalized to remove irregularities and to create peace, confidence and trust in the electoral process. The nullification of the 2017 presidential election was also premised on the use of manual registers. A manual register is a document that is being used to mess up elections and so the ruling of the Supreme Court that nullified the presidential elections in 2017 must be complied with in this elections with IEBC," stated Sossion.
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On his part, Nandi Senator echoed Sossion's sentiments, saying a manual register is easy to manipulate and formed the reasons why Supreme Court cancelled the 2017 presidential elections.
The Ruto-allied senator wondered why the government agencies can use all the digital information garnered through the registration of Huduma numbers and use them to back up the digital register in case of any technicalities.
"As Kenya Kwanza, we have taken a position to abide by the ruling of the Supreme Court. It was ruled that Digital Registers should be used and this was even agreed upon by former Nasa agents before the court. What shocks us is that the current government which is part of the larger Azimio team pushed us to sign the Huduma Number bill in parliament.
"CS Matiang'i told us that he has all the biometric information of Kenyans, why is it not hard now to transfer that biometric information which was captured by the Kenya Population and Housing Census of 2019 and the Huduma recruitment process and back the digital voting, why push us back to manual?" posed Cherargei.
He said their worry is that those who will not vote could have their names ticked and their votes counted leading to ballot stashing in favour of certain candidates.
Cherargei lashed out at Raila, claiming he wants to use manual registers to steal votes in his favour, since digital registers are hard to manipulate.
He added that they will call IEBC out if they make the mistake of introducing manual registers.
