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.

On political engagement and the youth vote

The topic of low voter turnout among young people has been discussed heavily both online and offline. As a result, many people have assumed that the young people demonstrate a very high level of political apathy, possibly due to a greater perception of corruption among governments or the sense that elected officials do not have their best interests at heart. However, this may not necessarily be the case.

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Instead, as Jay McGregor of TechRadar points out, it's quite possible that “young folks are more political than ever – just not formally.” They are not making it out to the polls to exercise their electoral right, but a good number of them are taking interest in politics and do want to change the way that government is run. 

A prominent example is Occupy Wall Street, which spurred on several more Occupy movements all around the world. Those groups were led largely by younger demographics following a genuine desire to have their concerns heard by the masses at large. They may have felt that the entire government institution only really had the best interest of the so-called 1% at heart and they were not working for the 99%. 

Young people all around the world also participate in a great number of political protests, as evidenced by the events in places like the Gaza Strip and in Egypt. These are areas with great political turmoil, but we are seeing a surging interest among youth in more stable areas as well. 

A common denominator in all the cases in which young citizens are participating actively in politics, is technology. In the Lok Sabha Elections in India earlier this year, the youth played a major role and social media was the source of great support for the Bharatiya Janata Party. Several grassroots movements, like MumbaiVotes and iForIndia, were also started and run by young people, once again leveraging the power of technology. 

Many youth are passionate about the needs of their country and about politics, but the challenge is to translate this passion into higher voter turnout among this demographic. It has been demonstrated that candidates that do focus on first-time voters can gain a loyal, lifetime following among those young people. And these young people are spending more time streaming videos online, reading blogs and participating in social media, so that's where the political candidates need to find common ground.

The electoral system itself needs to be updated so that it does not feel as archaic and outdated to the youth of today. They need to feel that the political system is relevant and modern, so the manner in which they cast a ballot must also feel equivalently relevant and modern. They make far less use of pen and paper in their everyday lives, so why would they fill out a paper ballot to cast a vote? It should offer the possibility to be electronic, easier and accessible.

How rational are voters when it comes to confidence in electoral results?

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It is nowadays commonplace to say that "Elections are the cornerstone of any democracy". However, in order for elections to be conducive to legitimate results and to help preserving democratic institutions, voters need to be confident that they are fairly conducted processes.

Now, confidence is tricky element of election administration as not all variables that condition it are under the control of the electoral commissions.

A Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), carried out between the late 1990s and early 2000s in 31 countries around the world measured confidence in their elections. Denmark lead the chart scoring 89%. The US ranked in the middle with 49% while South Korea was at the bottom. This study serves as a great benchmark for election administrators trying to improve transparency, efficiency and accuracy in the eyes of their constituents.

More recently, a study by the PEW Charitable Trust, published in February 2012, and called
Election Administration By The Numbers reveals an interesting fact regarding the confidence of US voters on their electoral systems: when it comes to evaluating election administration, people are far less rational than one would imagine.

Three conclusions drawn from the research project are the basis for such assertion. They are:

1. A considerable amount of Americans do not think the election system reflects the will of the voters.
2. Americans tend to believe results in their community better reflect the will of voter than national results.
3. Voters tend to judge accuracy of results using a partisan lens.

This third point is particularly interesting as it might explain a worldwide tendency of fraud claiming by losing candidates. Data shows that many American voters trust the election system’s integrity when their candidate has won. The following table illustrates this point. In 2004, Bush, a Republican, was re-elected, but in 2008 President Obama, a democrat won the presidency. 2010 was an election favorable for the Republicans.

The bottom line in all of this is that voters seem to be less objective than many of us had previously thought. Election administrators need to not only improve the actual state of the election administration, but also, they need to work on the perception of the processes. As the old adagio says, "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion".