Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission(IEBC) is looking to register high school students as voters in its effort to realize its target during the ongoing continuous voter registration.
Speaking in Homa Bay County, the county voter registration coordinator Silvance Adeka pointed out that most students in high school are above 18 years and are being overlooked in the ongoing voter registration.
Adeka said they have already begun helping students who are above 18 years and lack National Identity cards so that they acquire the important document needed for one to register as a voter.
“We need to fast track the process and sent their forms to Nairobi so that in a maximum of four to five days the IDs are back so that they can be enabled to register as voters before the deadline,” Adeka said.
IEBC is currently conducting the second continuous voter registration was necessitated by the low turnout witnessed during the first exercise last year November in its preparation for the August 9 General Election.
The exercise that commenced on January 17, is expected to run until February 6, 2022, targeting to list 4.5 million voters who were left out in the first phase.
The second continuous voter listing also began at a slow pace as IEBC only listed 229,843 new voters in the first week against its weekly target of 1,493,569.
During the first continuous voter registration, IEBC managed to register approximately 1.5 million new voters against 6.5 million Kenyans that IEBC had targeted to register.
The new strategy of Homa Bay County voter coordinate comes after the ODM leader Raila Odinga threatened to drop his presidential bid if Nyanza residents do not register in larger numbers of voters.
