Running mate photos to miss from ballots

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Updated 3 hrs 28 mins ago

By WAINAINA NDUNG’U

The photos of presidential and governor running mates will not be in the ballot papers during the General Election.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said putting the photos would congest the ballot paper, expected to carry names of multiple candidates.

IEBC director of voter Registration and Electoral Operations Immaculate Kassait said this is one of the changes introduced to cut costs after Parliament slashed its budget.

Presidential candidates and county governors will run on a joint ticket with their running mates.

Reduced voting time
The commission has also suggested moves to cut voting time. “A voter will be issued with six colour coded ballots and sent to the voting booth. Then he will head to six colour coded ballot boxesm matching with the ballot papers,” said Ms Kassait. She was addressing a media workshop on covering the elections in Nairobi.

IEBC also announced it has decided that presidential ballots would be counted first in all polling stations as opposed to the past when electoral officers chose what votes to count first.

“Our experience is that the presidential ballot causes the most anxiety and its counting needed to be disposed off first,” said Kassait.

Uniform decision
“We had to make a uniform decision rather than create a situation where the officers at four different levels were left to make their own,” said the official.

The IEBC is promising to deliver the election results much earlier than the seven days it is allowed by the law, but it expressing concern about the number of ballots to be counted in an election involving six different ballots.

“We are asking Kenyans to appreciate the results will now pass from polling station to Constituency Tallying then to County Tallying Centre and eventually to the National Tallying Centre,” said Ms Kassait.

Silent
IEBC also pointed out the new Elections Act was silent on whether a legal challenge could be lodged on the results of an indecisive first round presidential ballot pending the holding of a second round ballot.