In the urban polling stations in Central Isiolo, more than 75 per cent of the machines failed to work, forcing the IEBC officials to switch to the manual system.
Due to the fault, voting in most parts of the county started late, as the election officials switched to the manual method.
By midday, most of those registered at polling centres in the heart of the town had not cast their vote, with both agents and observers blaming the election officials for the hitch.
IEBC officials and security personnel had to resort to unorthodox methods of safeguarding ballot boxes and papers after the situation threatened to get out of control.
Restore normalcy
At Bula Pesa Kiosk station, a presiding officer took balloting material, including ballot boxes with cast votes, to a private house forcing a protest from voters and candidates.
Isiolo OCPD Daniel Kamanza had to intervene with his officers to restore normalcy.
At Olla Bule, voting was suspended for close to an hour as the presiding officer sealed the ballot boxes claiming the voters had become rowdy.
Voters accused her of failing to take charge of the situation by failing to ensure proper queues and allowing police to disregard her orders.
‘‘We were assured these machines would work. But even where there is electricity, they failed to work. IEBC has failed Kenyans in this historic poll,’’ said Gelkaad Mohammed, an ODM agent at Olla Bule polling station.
‘‘Things would have been smooth had the IEBC officials done their homework well. Some of the officers were naïve and failed to take charge of emerging issues,’’ said Gelkaad.
Resorting to manual system also led to big confusion as voters who had queued for hours missed their names from the registers and had to line up for more hours in the next polling stations for a re-check.
Large numbers
At some polling stations, the IEBC officials also disregarded pleas from the disabled, expectant and breast-feeding mothers to jump the queue and vote.
‘‘I am a disabled person but was asked to line up and vote. I have stood for two hours but I’m yet to vote. In this line are other disable persons, pregnant and breast-feeding mothers,’’ said Yahya Mohammed, a voter at Olla Bule.
Meanwhile, voting in Moyale constituency kicked off smoothly and no ugly incidents were reported as Kenyans turned up in large numbers to elect their leaders.
Some delays were, however, reported in several polling stations like Heilu, Butiye Oddah and Manyatta Burji within Moyale town.
The constituency has seven wards namely Golbo, Butiye, Moyale town ship, Heilu/Manyatta, Sololo township, Uran and with a total of 38,562 registered voters.
Slow voting
Moyale Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission ( IEBC) Coordinator Justus Mbithi attributed slow voting in the area to the high illiteracy levels, adding that most voters had to be assisted to cast their ballots.
Moyale constituency had two candidates contesting Marsabit County gubernatorial seat.
Ali casted his vote at Uran Nursery polling station at 7am while Tadicha casted his vote at Moyale Primary School at around 12 noon.
source: standard Digital
