Although voters who had reported at their respective stations complained that the process was very slow, they showed marked patience and order.
“It’s taking more than ten minutes before I make another step and I wonder what is happening. I was here by 4am and I'm yet to vote,” Joseph Kamau told the Standard at 8am at the Kiambu Community Hall in Kiambu town.
At the Kiambu IEBC county coordinator Dorcas Wambui said they were using the backup manual register in places where the electronic system completely failed.
In Kirinyaga County, Narc-Kenya presidential candidate Martha Karua criticised the IEBC for providing malfunctioning Biometric Voter Registers in Kirinyaga County. She spoke after voting at the Mugumo Primary School in Gichugu constituency where poll officials had to use the manual register to verify her name.
“After waiting for half an hour, due to the technical hitch the BVR machines have experienced in this County, I have finally cast my vote,” she said.
Kirinyaga County was one of those hard hit by failure of the electronic kits.
In Nyeri County, voters turned up early to cast their votes and the exercise continued uneventfully.
At the Nyeri Municipal Yard polling station in Nyeri town, a distraught youth was arrested after members of the public beat him up for throwing stones at voters queuing to cast their ballot.
AP officers manning the station whisked away the bleeding youth and it was not immediately clear why he had engaged in the act.
Central Provincial commissioner Japther Rugut and Nyeri County Commissioner Michael Mwangi were some of the early voters at the Township Health Centre polling station.
The two said the government security machinery would ensure security for voters and poll officials and urged members of the public to uphold peace.
In Ndaragwa constituency in Nyandarua County, Amani coalition presidential running mate Jeremiah Kioni was one of the first voters to cast his vote at Kanyagia Primary School.
Accompanied by his daughter Wairimu, the single term MP arrived at the polling station at 6am but found hundreds of residents already in queue.
Kioni urged leaders to accept results and refrain from making inciting and inflammatory utterances, adding that every Kenyan have a responsibility of maintaining peace in the country at all times.
In Thika, residents were at polling stations as early as 3am as others went round the estates waking up those still asleep by blowing whistles and vuvuzelas.
At the Thika Municipal Stadium, which is one of the polling stations with a large population, some voters were said to be missing from the register but were appeased when informed to wait for their names to be checked in the special register.
(Report by: Wainaina Ndung’u in Nyeri, Mary Kamande in Thika, James Munyeki in Nyandarua, Munene Kamau in Kirinyaga and Eric Wainaina in Kiambu) The Standard
