As we await the final results…if not all, most Kenyans can attest to the impact technology seen in the 2017 election from voting to relying to tallying and to announcing. Despite IEBC receiving bashing from almost all political parties vying for the 2017 general elections over the last 4 months, they have given their best at pushing through their tech strategy and also convincing Kenyans of a free and fair electioneering process.
From county to county we are beginning to see results coming through intended portals, save for the few hiccups we saw in some polling stations of stalled systems causing non-moving queues. Other causes of confusion were of course the remaining manual systems that we could not evade like ballot papers and political name calling that we can all admit was kind of tricky as you put in ballot papers in the respective boxes.
Titles like Member of County assembly, Women Members of Parliament to the National Assembly of Kenya, Members of Parliament to the National assembly of Kenya just but a few in layman language known as MCA, Women rep, MP and Governors respectively as put by politicians during campaigns.
I know, some of you would say that is common sense but think about that 64 year old man down in Murang’a searching on end for MCA titles on the ballot box. How do you think we get spoilt votes? Some of the people will just throw in papers in these boxes thinking that the officers will sort them because that is work eigh? Not to forget all the nicknames used during campaigns that has voters searching during the actual voting.
All in all, Kenyans were misled in one way or the other not mentioning the vague manifestos. Spoilt votes could be avoided by giving voters real titles, real names and real positions. You cannot be named Governor Kamau, because that is your prospective position in the future yet you are vying for MCA in the elections. Lessons to learn and also a step to full technologically relayed and tallied elections.
