The number of spoilt votes would be factored in when determining if a candidate had met the requisite half of the number of votes cast, clarified Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairman Issack Hassan on Tuesday.
“When the Constitution says a winning candidate must get 50 plus one of the votes cast and 25 per cent in at least 24 counties, we mean those votes that were placed in the ballot box, including the spoilt ones,” Mr Hassan told the Press at Bomas.
By 3pm Tuesday, the number of spoilt votes was 305,000, or seven per cent of the more than 4.9 million votes counted at the time.
This was more than double the 125,827 cast for Amani Coalition’s presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi and more than the combined total for him and all others with less votes than him.
Mr Hassan said during the simulation exercise, the commission noted that there were places where voters put the ballot in the wrong box.
“These screens are showing different numbers… valid votes, disputed votes and rejected votes. During the tallying centre calculation and the official announcement of results, we’ll have to calculate them properly…what are the actual votes, the votes cast in the whole country…”
“The colour coding was not as good as it should have been. The green was not green enough, maybe the blue should have been bluer, may be the colours should have been stronger,” he said.
He said this could also be attributed to the “complexity of this election”, where voters were electing six candidates — county ward representatives, MPs, women representatives, senators, governors and president.
A vote is rejected if the mark on it cuts across many candidates such that it is impossible to tell who the voter wanted to choose.
It is also categorised as rejected if it is inserted in the wrong box.
Some voters are also likely to have put a tick in one box and a cross in another, while others write their names in a vain attempt to mark their role in making history. All these end up spoilt.
At the polling station, party agents are required to agree on each vote marked rejected.
That figure is recorded and transmitted together with the results of valid votes. -Daily Nation
