The Elections Observation Group (ELOG), has confirmed their projections tally is similar to that of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission presidential results announced on August 15.
In a press conference held on Tuesday, August 16, ELOG chairperson Anne Ireri said the IEBC figures announced by Wafula Chebukati fell within their projected ranges and their Parallel vote tabulation (PVT) estimates were consistent with the official results.
“ELOG’s PVT estimates are consistent with IEBC’s official results for the 2022 presidential elections,” she added. “In light of our assessment of the Election Day processes and given that IEBC figures fall within the projected ranges, the PVT projections, therefore, corroborate the official results.”
The group’s projection gave William Ruto 50.7 percent to the IEBC’s 50.49 percent with a margin of error of +/-2.1 percent; for Raila Odinga, it was 48.7 percent for the IEBC’s 48.85 percent with a margin of error of +/-2.1 percent.
George Wajackoyah and David Mwaure were placed at 0.44 percent and 0.23 percent respectively, compared with the IEBC’s 0.5 percent and 0.2 percent.
ELOG is a national forum comprising civil society organizations (CSOs), and faith-based organizations (FBOs) that include the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), the Institute for Education in Democracy (IED) think-tank and the influential National Council of Churches in Kenya
ELOG recruited and received data from over 5,000 observers dispatched across 290 constituencies in the country’s 47 counties, on the August 9 General Election as part of their tabulation process.
“Of these, 1000 Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) observers were carefully recruited, specially trained and deployed to a nationally representative random sample of polling stations,” Anne Ireri, the group’s chairperson said.
Ireri also touched on the chaos that unfolded on the day of Chebukati announcing William Ruto as president-elect, and the division within the electoral commission that saw four of its seven Commissioners disown the tallying process.
“ELOG notes that the results transmission system worked much better than expected with over 99% of scan images of the 34a and the 34b posted on the IEBC web portal. However, we are extremely concerned about the chaos that broke out at the national tallying centre at Bomas as well as the split within the IEBC leading to some commissioners quitting the tallying process and issuing their own statements prior to the announcement of the presidential results,” said Ireri.
The IEBC Commissioners made a comprehensive statement in Serena Hotel later on the same day, that detailed why they declined to take ownership of the electoral results.
Electoral Commissioner Juliana Cherera, flanked by three of her colleagues; Francis Wanderi, Irene Masit and Justus Nyangaya, stated that the aggregation of the percentages of the results were a mathematical absurdity that defied logic.
The four disputed the summation of percentages of votes awarded to each of the four presidential candidates exceeded 100 per cent, which in their opinion, affected the accuracy of the source of the figures tallied.
“Chebukati’s aggregation was as follows; Raila Odinga 48.85%, William Ruto 50.49, Waihiga Mwaure 0.27%, Wajackoyah George 0.44%. The said summation gives us a total of 100.01% the 0.01% translates to approximately 142,000 votes, which will make a significant difference in the final result. We, therefore, declined to take ownership of the said results because the aggregation resulted in a percentage exceeding 100,” Cherrera read in the statement dated August 15.
ELOG further reiterated that it is up to the Supreme Court of Kenya to validate the declaration made by Chebukati.
