IEBC officials line up with ballot boxes outside the Friends Church Lumakanda tallying center [Photo-Courtesy]
There has been wide speculation as to why the tallying centre for Lugari Constituency at Friends Church in Lumakanda is delaying in releasing official election results despite other areas of the country having finished the process.
Official results for the Member of the National Assembly (MP) and Members of the County Assembly (MCA) seats have not been released yet.
One of the reasons given by IEBC officials at the tallying centre is the systematic failure of the KIEMS kit in identifying voters during the voting process on Tuesday, which forced them to resort to using the manual register, a factor they say has led to many ballot boxes arriving late at the tallying centre.
Another reason for the delay in releasing results is the lengthy process of verifying Forms 34A before sending them to the National Tallying Centre at the Bomas of Kenya.
Poor road network linking to some polling stations has also been blamed on the late arrival of ballot boxes at the tallying centre.
Yesterday, ballot boxes arrived as late as 10 a.m. despite the voting process ending at 5 PM on Tuesday as was required. The tallying centre was flooded with security officers and IEBC officials carrying ballot boxes, light booths and other election materials.
Yesterday, a source tipped us that one of the MCA candidates had ordered a repeat of the counting of votes after claiming some ballots had not been tallied properly.
The results are expected to be out by the end of today.
Sam Oduor has a bachelor’s degree in Media and Communication studies from Moi University and is passionate about working in the newsroom as well as reporting on key issues affecting society through his talent in photography and writing.
