On Wednesday, August 31, recounting of the presidential ballot papers from 45 contested polling stations began at the sub-registry at the Forodha house.
The recount and scrutiny started just a day after the Supreme Court ordered the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to open ballot boxes from 15 polling centers for inspection, scrutiny, and recount.
As of yesterday, only nine out of the 45 polling stations had been opened, scrutinized and votes recounted by the registrar of the Supreme Court Letizia Wachira.
In the nine ballot boxes that Raila had in his petition challenging William Ruto’s presidential win alleged that his votes were deducted and added to his arch-rival, the court found that there were no serious abnormalities.
The court found that most of the ballot boxes from Majengo and Mvita primaries schools in Mombasa County matched with what was in Form 34A and the declaration results forms.
There were some minor issues that emerged during the scrutiny and recount of the ballot boxes.
For instance, the IEBC officials failed to seal rejected ballot papers, lack of stamps as well as missed the physical voters’ registers.
Furthermore, the scrutiny revealed that the ballot box for room one of the Majengo polling station had no form 34A while for room two, Form 34A was not filled and stamped.
In stream 5 of Mvita Primary School, the ballot box had two Forms34A, one signed by the presiding officer and another signed by the deputy presiding officer.
The scrutiny was undertaken in the presence of the agents of the IEBC, those of Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party, Kenya Kwanza Alliance as well as those representing activists.
Three petitioners wanted to be allowed to scrutinize ballot papers from a different number of polling stations but the court said only ballot boxes from 45 polling stations will be scrutinized due to time limits.
