Unanswered questions on dead persons in the IEBC voter register

 

IEBC registration clerks.[File,Standard]

A storm over the validity of the register of voters raged yesterday as the Opposition demanded further clean-up to weed out dead voters.

Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) alleged manipulation of the register and cited information on social media of people who claimed they had verified the status of relatives who died years ago but still had their details on the list.

“Kenyans have confirmed the existence of dead family members, some who passed away 15 to 20 years ago, in the voters register,” said the party in a statement by secretary general Agnes Zani.

Yesterday, The Standard obtained identity card (ID) numbers of dead persons and sent to number 70,000, given by IEBC to the public to verify their voter details.

Jacob Juma, a businessman killed in Nairobi on May 5 last year is still listed as an eligible voter in Manyatta village polling station in Langata constituency, Nairobi.

The late Margy Oira Mogire, whose ID number is 2555542, is a registered voter at Getare Tea Buying Centre, West Mugirango in Nyamira.

Boaz Kibisu Mujilwa, ID number 3433706, who passed away last year is registered at Evojo Primary School, Sabatia in Vihiga County.

Jeremiah Matthew Ojanji, ID number 4222510, who died last year, is listed as a voter at Namboboto Boys Primary School in Funyula, Busia County.

A non-existent ID number 1234567 is registered as belonging to Catherine Kagendo, scheduled to vote at Kandete Primary School in Runyenjes, Embu.

NASA principal Musalia Mudavadi said the issue of dead voters should be dealt with urgently.

“For credible elections, there should be a system that connects Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to Civil Registration Department (CRS) so that when someone dies and the death is reported to the authorities, it is automatically deleted,” Musalia said.

Allay fears

IEBC Commissioner Roselyn Akombe yesterday sought to allay the fears by the Opposition, explaining that the commission had implemented most of the recommendations by the audit firm KPMG.

Dr Akombe said out of 92,277 listed as deceased in the audit, 3,675 were erroneously captured as dead.

“We got records from the Registrar of Births and Death which they get from civil registrar from the field,” she explained.

She said the commission had set up back-up measures to weed out dead voters in the unlikely event that the electronic identification fails.

“The primary method is biometric. It is only after your bio data is verified that you will be allowed to vote,” she said.

IEBC yesterday published sections of a report by audit firm KPMG that audited the register of voters to demonstrate how the decision to expunge 92,277 dead voters was arrived at.

According to the audit by KPMG, a total of 11,104 dead voters had been expunged from the register since 2012, and of these, only 30 had been expunged since 2013.

KPMG obtained the number of expected and registered deaths from the Civil Registration Department, and based on those details, requested CRS to provide the full list of deceased persons based on registered deaths.