No glaring discrepancies in Homa Bay gubernatorial poll vote recount, court finds

Homa Bay petition

Dan Ojijo, a former IEBC official testifies before court on November 24,2022 in an election petition challenging the victory of Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga.

Photo credit: George Odiwuor I Nation Media Group

The High Court has found no glaring discrepancies in the vote recount and scrutiny of the Homa Bay gubernatorial poll results in the August 9, 2022 General Election.

The election of Governor Gladys Wanga had been challenged in court by his rival former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero.

In the report by Homa Bay High Court Deputy Registrar Joy Wesonga, the court had set nine areas to be checked in the exercise to establish whether there were any discrepancies in the votes that were cast and the official results declared by the IEBC.

The areas included scrutiny of ballot boxes which entailed checking the integrity of ballot boxes and seals. Other areas that were being checked included whether form 37A was affixed on the boxes, observing and recording the condition of the boxes before opening the same, noting available IEBC seals on each box, their condition and matching them with Polling Station Diary (PSD).

In the report, Ms Wesonga said the exercise checked the serial number of the form 37A booklet used, if any, and matched them with the  Polling Station Diary (PSD).

The agents also scrutinised SD cards to ascertain the number of voters identified by the KIEMS kits on voting day.

In her findings, the deputy registrar said all the ballot papers’ serials in all the respective ballot boxes had their corresponding counterfoils matched.

“In few instances the counterfoils lacked their corresponding ballot papers found in the ballot box for gubernatorial election, this was averagely three counterfoils without corresponding ballot papers,” she wrote in the report.

Findings

The court established that security features (QR codes) of the printed scanned original copies revealed that they were authentic forms. All original forms 37As also had IEBC stamps.

Ms Wesonga said all the original forms 37As had signatures of either the Presiding Officer, Deputy Presiding officer or both.

“In a few instances, the stamps and signatures on the carbon copies were not there. The results on the printed scanned original copies matched with the results on the Carbon copies,” she wrote.

Some carbon copies did not match the original forms, however, the results were the same.

In one polling station, Ongeti Primary School in Rangwe constituency the results on the carbon copy did not match the results on the original form used in the final tally.

Ms Wesonga said all forms were signed by at least one agent.

She also said the scrutiny exercise proceeded without any negative incidents.

“All the parties, their advocates and agents cooperated with the Deputy Registrar and her team,” Ms Wesonga wrote.

However, out of 192 polling stations that were checked, two boxes were found to have been broken while some had at least a seal missing.

The court had also ordered for recount of votes garnered by each candidate (Gladys Wanga, Evans Kidero and Mark Rabudi) and compare the recount results with that in Form 37As as agents confirmed that the serials on each ballot paper matched the used counterfoil.

Counterfoils

During the exercise, agents from both parties scrutinised the number of counterfoils used on the polling day.

They also scrutinised forms 37As to confirm that each vote had visible security features.

Other scopes for the exercise included comparison of the original form 37As and the certified result (carbon copy) of the form 37A found in the ballot box for the polling stations.

She said in one polling station, some ballot papers lacked corresponding counterfoils. However, the ballot paper serials were correctly captured in the PSD to be among the counterfoils used.

The available counterfoils were loosely attached and pieces were scattered in the ballot box.

During the exercise, she observed some of the ballot boxes lacked counterfoils.

“Some counterfoils lacked corresponding ballot papers in the ballot box, an indication that the same may have strayed into other ballot boxes. Some ballot boxes had counterfoils not sealed in tamper-proof envelopes,” Ms Wesonga wrote in her report.