Insider's Insight: Kenya's Journey to Modernized Elections

 

Wafula Chebukati, the former Chairman of Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), recently gave an insightful speech at the 19th International Electoral Affairs Symposium and Awards in Lisbon, Portugal. In his address, he emphasized the transformative impact technology had in preserving the integrity of the historic 2022 Kenyan elections.

As explained by Chebukati, the elections were significant, not only in Kenya's history but also in demonstrating the potency of technology in supporting credible democratic processes. Amid immense challenges long associated with Kenya's electoral landscape, and with the specter of the annulled 2017 elections still looming, the country achieved a milestone: highly credible elections that were recognized both nationally and internationally.

The successful integration of technology played a critical role in this achievement. The IEBC harnessed biometric technology to enable poll workers to validate voter identities and to digitally capture tally reports. Digital copies of tally reports were automatically published online in real time. The prompt publication of tally reports on the night of the election boosted transparency.

Despite the ensuing defamation campaign post-results announcement, where certain factions attempted to discredit Chebukati, the IEBC, and the technology, the legitimacy of the results was upheld by the Supreme Court. Broadcast online, these hearings made it evident that the deployment of technology materially contributed to transparency and integrity in the 2022 Kenyan elections. "The transparency with which Form 34As were transmitted and the bullet-proof technology systems utilized resulted in no single point of failure," stated Chebukati.

This landmark voting event coordinated over 460,000 poll workers across 22,229 polling stations, serving 22 million citizens. The technological advancements adopted not only ensured a smoother voting process but also offered a robust defense against claims of irregularities.

Chebukati's address at the Lisbon Symposium serves as a beacon of promise for other countries grappling with similar challenges in their electoral systems.

The International Centre for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS) is an organization dedicated to enhancing policymaking and governance by facilitating interaction between parliaments, governments, and societal stakeholders. The Symposium and Awards ceremony was held on November 13 – 16 and election specialists from the world over.

Kenya shuns past, holds first peaceful vote in years

International election observers heaved a sigh of relief as the Kenyan elections came to a close without violence in a stark departure from past polls that had been pockmarked by killings.

“On election day, voters exercised their right to vote in a general peaceful manner throughout the day,” lauded Ivan Stefance, head of the EU observation mission.

In a statement, Bruce Golding, former Prime Minister of Jamaica and the current chairman the Commonwealth Observer Group commended the people of Kenya for the “peaceful and orderly manner in which they exercised their right to vote on 9 August 2022.

“It is our hope that by bringing this electoral process to a successful conclusion, Kenya will serve as an inspiration for the Commonwealth and indeed, the rest of the world, that relevant lessons have been learned from the past, and that each successive election is an improvement on the previous one,” Golding said.

Although the matter is more nuanced, many observers are already singling out this year’s successful implementation of technology as a significant factor in keeping violence at bay.

“The mission commends the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for the successful use of technology for voter registration voter identification and transmission of results. It has improved efficiency and increased the transparency for the election process in Kenya. At least those of us who were here in the last election can attest to that,” said Jakaya Kikwete, Head of the East African Community Observation Mission, and former President of Tanzania.

Dr. Ernest Bai Koromo, former president of the Republic of Sierra Leone noted the improvement in the overall voting exercise across the country. “Polling stations opened on time, voters were identified easily by digital kits and no major security incident was reported," he said.

“As a result of these changes to the Results Transmission System (RTS), the provisional presidential election results were publicly accessible on the IEBC portal. The Mission welcomes introducing these transparency measures to improve the integrity of the electoral process,” Koromo added.

The IEBC earned plaudits from the Commonwealth Observer Group for learning from past lessons, saying that “the Group notes that the IEBC applied a lessons-learned approach from the 2017 elections and adopted new software and hardware through the requisition of the KIEMS kit from a company called Smartmatic. It was noted that the IEBC undertook two simulation exercises of the KIEMS kits for the electronic transmission of results, the second of which our Advance Team was able to observe. We acknowledge these efforts, as the transparency they displayed contributed to building confidence in this key feature of the electoral process.”

The Kenyan election saw Deputy President William Samoei Ruto, 55, winning narrowly with 50.49 percent of the votes over his rival Raila Odinga, 77, who took 48.85 percent. Although Odinga is contesting his loss, political observers largely believe the election results to be credible.

Election watchdog ELOG (Elections Observation Group), a federation of more than a dozen NGOs, said that its parallel vote tabulation (PVT) estimates were consistent with IEBC’s official results.

“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,” said the group’s chairperson Anne Ireri.

Kenyan citizens and election observers had been on tenterhooks during the lead up to the elections over fears that this year’s exercise would be a repeat of the bloody elections in 2007 where 1,200 people were killed and in the 2017 violence which left 24 people dead across the nation.

Automation in Kenya: a hurried implementation is never a good idea

Image: EveryStockPhoto

Although it is true that automation solves many problems in the electoral field, this does not mean that just about any e-voting system will work. Taking the leap to automation requires a close examination of the potential providers, and one of the main aspects to keep in mind for choosing one is the provider’s experience. Kenya’s electoral blunder serves as an example why.

As mentioned on an earlier post, the bout of violence Kenya endured in 2007 prompted the country to hastily adopt an electronic voting system. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) set up an election’s results transmission system based on SMS that was meant to speed up the final stages of the electoral process and enhance security. Biometric authentication was also incorporated into the modernization process. This year’s election was expected to be the most modern in Africa and beyond.

However, this new platform proved to be no better than the manual method from earlier years. Kenyans’ fears of a new round of chaos materialized when every single stage of the automated process failed. First of all, the conditions under which elections were generally held in the country were not taken into account. As a result, not even the most basic of requirements for automation, electricity, were available, as some of the classrooms used as polling stations were not equipped with power sockets.

Then the biometric authentication kits failed to recognize voters’ fingerprints, forcing officials to turn to paper records and manual registration to carry on with the election and slowing down the electoral process considerably. As if this were not enough, the server employed to transmit results to the central tallying center from 33,400 polling stations became overloaded and crashed, and the electoral body had to revert to manual counting. Safaricom, the communications supplier hired for this final stage, had advised IEBC to hold a large-scale drill before going live, but the electoral body disregarded the recommendation with dire consequences. In the end, the announcement of Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory took place over a week after the elections.

It is commendable that a country wants to resort to e-voting to stop fraud and make its elections more agile and transparent. However, automation is a very delicate procedure that is prone to failure when not carried out properly. There are many points where Kenya’s providers incurred in negligence and aggravated an already fragile democracy. The lack of previous infrastructure studies and the lack of drills and pilot tests in minor electoral events are amongst the most serious mistakes made by the e-voting providers. In short, Kenya’s botched election was an example of sheer improvisation.

Electronic elections in the Philippines, Brazil, and Venezuela have been successful because their providers have been conscious of the need to analyze a country’s infrastructure and idiosyncrasy before incorporating automation into its electoral system. The implementation process in these countries has been gradual and supported by numerous pilot tests and audits, thus being able to offer smooth elections that gain people’s trust in the new technology. The urge for automation cannot win over the urge for an electoral system that works.

Kenya’s electoral catastrophe is a lesson for other countries to learn: When it comes to modernizing a country’s electoral platform, there is no room for haste.

Kenya: a poor implementation of voting technology

Kenya longs for peace. Photograph: Phil Moore/AFP/Getty Images

On March 4th, Kenya, East Africa's largest economist held its first general elections since the new constitution was approved in a national referendum in 2010. As part of this deep legal transformation, robust electoral reforms were introduced to set the new grounds for credible, and legitimate elections. 

Kenya has been under intense scrutiny by national and international organizations since the 2007, when the losing candidate in the presidential elections, Raila Amollo Odinga, refused to concede defeat alleging a massive fraud had been conducted. His supported rioted the streets and ethnic violence erupted. More than 1,200 killed and hundreds were displaced. The political, social and economic consequences of such episodes are still fresh in the memory of all Kenyans.

To avoid the recurrence of a similar tragedy, and conduct peaceful and more transparent elections, Kenya embarked on a project to modernize its voting system by automating certain phases of the election cycle. Biometric technology was introduced to increase accuracy of the voter roll and minimize the impact of vote impersonation. Also, an electronic transmission of results was implemented to speed up the result consolidation and publication process. 

Unfortunately, the newly formed Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) came short of accomplishing their noble goals. Both automation processes were poorly managed, causing a cumbersome voting experience for most voters, and delaying result publication for almost an entire week.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga is again playing a role that is becoming familiar to him, claiming fraud. He laments that the billions spent in technology for voter identification and vote tallying claiming rendered poor results. "Two days after the vote, the electronic tallying process was discarded and counting began afresh, manually. That too turned out to be flawed exercise in which, among other things, there was massive tampering with the IEBC voter register" he stated. 

Although it is early for international observers to conclude that a massive fraud was carried out, they have acknowledged the technical problems and delays. The biometric platform, developed by a partnership between the Government of Canada and a subcontractor, Morpho Canda Inc, reported numerous failures causing voters to wait in line for hours before casting a vote.

Also, the system in charge of the transmission of results and processing the data broke down forcing a manual count of the votes. The services used to provide the tallying and result publishing services were provided by different companies. 

Utilizing an mobile App designed by IFES and installed on cell phones distributed to each polling stations, authorities were supposed to use Safaricom (a leading mobile network operator in Kenya) telecommunication company) SIM cards to send results transmitted via a Virtual Private Network  (VPN). Servers in consolidation centers, managed by Next Technologies, were supposed to process results and upload them to a Google hosted website. 

Acknowledging all difficulties experienced by voters to cast a vote, and knowing results, James Oswago, Chief executive of Kenya's IEBC, stated "none of those reasons is malevolent, none of those reasons was intended to keep you here needlessly. We tried our best." 

In the light of such complex political landscape, and with the 2007 chaos fresh in everyone's memory, we hope the technical glitches do not assume political dimensions.