ELOG observer mission says its parallel vote tally matches IEBC figures

The Elections Observation Group (ELOG) monitoring Kenya’s General Election has said its parallel vote tally  is in agreement with the official figures released by the electoral body on Monday evening.

ELOG Chairperson Anne Ireri on Tuesday said presidential election results by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) are in tandem with the observer group’s Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT).

IEBC declared William Samoei Arap Ruto as the duly elected fifth President of Kenya after garnering 7,176,141 votes, representing 50.49 percent of the total votes.

His main rival Raila Odinga of the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition party got 6,942,930 votes representing 48 percent of the votes cast.

On the other hand, ELOG said its PVT placed Ruto’s score at 50.7 percent while Odinga scored 48.7 percent, indicating a (+/-) 2.1% margin of error for both candidates.

“​​ELOG’s PVT estimates are consistent with IEBC’s results for the 2022 presidential election. In light of our assessment of election day processes, and given that IEBC figures fall within the projected ranges, the PVT results therefore corroborates the official results,” Ms. Ireri said.

She further pointed out that the observer group’s projection for the final voter turnout was 65.1 percent against IEBC’s official turnout of 65.4 percent.

At the same time, ELOG commended the exercise in general, terming it an improvement from the 2017 General Election. The observer group specially lauded media freedom and access to information as some of the commendable aspects in the process.

“There has been access to information throughout the election cycle, we have not seen any interruption of social media and traditional media,” noted Ms. Ireri.

The observer group however identified several aspects in need of improvement moving forward, such as ensuring transparency and integrity in maintenance of the voter register, including providing full access to the KPMG audit report and clear status updates on the uptake of the recommendations from the report.

“Ensuring that the results transmission is clear and understandable to the stakeholders, and that the commission shares with its citizens the final election results in a granular and machine-readable format,” she noted.

ELOG had deployed 5,108 observers to tallying centres across the country to assess the integrity and general conduct of the electoral process.

Of these, 3,050 were general observers while 1,000 Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) observers assumed the role of stationery observers on election day.