Lawyer Mahat Somane on Thursday, September 1, directed tough questions to Raila Odinga’s legal team over allegations that the Azimio presidential candidate’s votes were deducted.
Speaking during IEBC’s oral submissions before the Supreme Court at Milimani Law Courts, lawyer Somane wondered how the incident would happen as all presidential agents were present during the verification process.
Somane said that at the National Tallying Centre in the Bomas of Kenya, IEBC made copies of original Forms 34 from returning officers and gave them to the agents for verification.
He added that the agents would then compare them with their own forms from polling stations before IEBC took them through a forensic audit.
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“We would call the Returning Officers and go through form by form. Is it the same serial number? Is it from that polling station? We provided micro-text readers and watermark readers of the originals. The agents would check and verify. If there was any issue, we did an error report,” Somane stated.
He then said that agents would be taken to the ICT desk where IEBC confirmed whether the physical forms were the same as those in the commission’s portal.
Somane stated that all the physical forms tallied with the ones that were uploaded in the portal, wondering how votes could be deducted.
“You had agents at the Constituency tallying centre, IEBC had originals. You had agents at the National Tallying centre, IEBC had originals. We had what was transmitted in the portal, we had originals. All of them tallied. And you’re saying your client’s votes were deducted. How?” Somane posed to Raila Odinga's lawyers.
