A scrutiny of governor seat ballot boxes in Homa Bay County revealed two non-existent polling stations.
Homa Bay High Court Deputy Registrar Joy Wesonga, who presided over the scrutiny exercise following the High Court judge Justice Roselyne Aburii’s order on November 4, 2022, said out of the 195 polling stations, it was discovered that two polling stations were non-existent while three had been repeated.
The non-existent polling stations include Bonga and Ranani Primary Schools in Ndhiwa constituency.
Repeated polling stations include Uya Primary School, Kabuoch South and Uya Primary School.
According to the report out of the 192 ballot boxes ,190 were intact while two ballot boxes had a breakage on the side.
“The report is prepared upon scrutiny and recount of 192 polling stations and scrutiny of forms 37As from 190 polling stations across eight constituencies regarding the 9th August 2022 gubernatorial elections for Homa Bay,” reads the report.
Results in ballot boxes
According to the report, in a majority of polling stations, the results as declared in forms 37A found inside the ballot box were consistent with the results of the recount of ballot papers.
“In instances where there was a variance, the margin in a majority of them was between one and two votes and this affected both the petitioners and 3rd & 4th respondents,” reads the report.
“Scrutiny of form 37As was carried out in accordance with ruling of the court as reviewed on 26th November 2022. This was in respect to polling stations comprising forms allegedly not signed,” reads the findings.
According to the report all original form 37As had IEBC stamps and all the original form 37As had signatures of either the Presiding Officer, Deputy Presiding officer or both.
“In few instances, the stamps and signatures on the carbon copies were not there. The results on the printed scanned original copies matched with the results on the carbon copies.
“Some carbon copies serials did not match the original forms, however the results were the same,” the report added.
In one polling station, Ongeti Primary School in Rangwe constituency, the results on the carbon copy did not match the results on the original form used in the final tally.
Notably, the results in the original matched the results after the recount. All forms were signed by at least one agent,” the report added.
The scrutinty exercise was carried out by nine judicial staff, nine advocates, 12 agents for first and second petitioners, 11 agents for respondent one and two and another 12 agents for respondent third and forth.
Former Nairobi Governor Dr Evans Kidero and his running mate Elijah Odondi Kodo who lost the Homa Bay gubernatorial race had petitioned the election of Governor Gladys Wanga and her deputy Joseph Oyugi Magwanga who were announced the winners of the election held on August 9, 2022.
Kidero is seeking to have Wanga’s win nullified on claims that the election was marred by massive irregularities, voter bribery, swapping of results, voter suppression and voter manipulation that compromised its integrity. The court had also ordered for the scrutiny and recount of the contents of the ballot boxes, scrutiny of the SD Cards and the scrutiny of the results declaration forms.
According to Kidero and IEBC, verified voters were persons biometrically identified while authorized voters were persons alphanumerically identified.
Further, the two parties stated that the total persons identified biometrically are the persons verified and include persons authorized by supervisor.
However, Wanga and her deputy’s lawyers argued that the total persons identified biometrically are the persons verified biometrically only.
In its explanation on the data, the IEBC team explained that the data captured by the KIEMS shows all persons who were eventually identified using the KIEMS either alphanumerically or biometrically.
However, all the parties were in agreement that total number of persons identified by KIEMS do not include those identified manually.
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