Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Lawyer Eric Gumbo says that the commission’s technology systems in the August 9 General Election were up to standard.
While making his submission at the Supreme Court during the hearing of the Presidential Election Petition case on Thursday, Gumbo said the isolated cases where IEBC KIEMS kits failed do not represent an overall failure of the commission in conducting the exercise.
“If out of the 46,229 KIEMS kits deployed around the country, only 200 did not work, have I failed? Even in our education system, an A doesn’t connote 100%, it starts somewhere from 88%. The mathematical representation of this gives us a more than 99% success rate. In our view that achieved the constitutional imperatives contemplated under Article 86,” Gumbo told the seven-member judge bench led by Chief Justice Martha Koome.
According to the lawyer, the Supreme Court should uphold the election of William Ruto as president and quash Azimio La Umoja One Kenya party leader Raila Odinga’s petition which seeks to overturn the result.
IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati on August 15 declared Ruto as the winner of the presidential election after garnering 7,176,141 votes, representing 50.49 per cent of the total votes cast.
Odinga came in second with 6,942,930 votes, which represents 48.85 per cent of the votes cast.
The former prime minister and his running mate Martha Karua allege in their petition that the declared presidential results lacked transparency, accountability, verifiability, and efficiency.
Ruto did not achieve the 50% plus one requirement to be declared winner of the presidential race, they argue, adding that Chebukati was constantly deleting and uploading different result declaration forms on the IEBC portal.
But in defense of the IEBC, Gumbo told the court that IEBC’s portal has two firewalls that secure its transmission system, and that transmission is done through a private and secure network.
The lawyer said all the digital forms have security features that would have flagged irregularities if there was a swapping of documents.
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