The August 10, 2027 general election is 11 months away, and the contest over whether there should be a National Tallying Centre (NTC) for the presidential election is already gaining traction as attention shifts to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
This comes as the High Court is scheduled to issue its determination on the constitutionality of the NTC on September 22, 2026, as petitioned by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah and opposition leaders led by Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka and DCP’s Rigathi Gachagua.
They want the court to declare the establishment and operation of the NTC for further verification of presidential election results unconstitutional, null and void.
But given the competing political interests as the debate rages, regardless of how the High Court determination goes, the matter will likely end at the Supreme Court.
In pushing for the abandonment of the NTC, the opposition says it will save Kenyans from the possibility of a rigged presidential election, citing the allegations raised by ODM in the 2022 presidential election petition, but which were dismissed by the Supreme Court judges.
ODM had claimed that Forms 34A, a record of presidential election results from the polling stations, submitted through the Results Transmission Service (RTS) from the polling stations, were manipulated at the NTC.
Immediate former Chief Justice David Maraga is a member of the united opposition conglomeration and once handled the matter as the head of the Supreme Court in the 2017 presidential election petition.
He stated that there should be no NTC at the Bomas of Kenya “or anywhere else in the country” ahead of the 2007 general election, a seeming departure from his 2017 determination.
The former CJ says that the Constitution does not provide for such a position, a position that has been supported by immediate former Attorney-General Justin Muturi, who is also the immediate former Speaker of the National Assembly, and former Law Society of Kenya (LSK) President Nelson Havi.
Justice (Rtd) Maraga made his position clear on behalf of the People’s Coalition on Electoral Reforms as he outlined key positions regarding the management and tallying of presidential election results.
“The Constitution does not provide for a national tallying centre,” said Maraga, adding: “The role of IEBC is to declare results, not retally votes.”
The CJ Emeritus put his case forth as he went on to demand minimum “mandatory reforms” before the 2027 general election, which include that there shall be no NTC facility and that IEBC officials must not retally, reverify or alter constituency declarations.
Former Chief Justice David Maraga (right) speaks to the media at the Sarova Panafric Hotel in Nairobi on September 15, 2026.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
The two petitions in court are challenging whether presidential results declared by constituency returning officers can be subjected to further verification, re-tallying or alteration at county and national levels.
The petitioners argue that the Constitution makes the constituency the primary and final point for tallying, verifying and declaring presidential results.
In the 2022 presidential election litigation, the Supreme Court clarified that tallying and verification at the NTC are responsibilities of IEBC as a collective institution, while the power to make the final declaration under Article 138(10) belongs exclusively to the chairperson.
This, electoral experts argue, is a distinction that prevents the national tallying process from becoming a one-person exercise.
But despite this, the former CJ argued that the current provisions within the Elections Act and related regulations that authorise the NTC and national-level verification of presidential results are unconstitutional.
“We demand that there should be no tallying centre at Bomas or anywhere in the country,” the former CJ noted, citing Articles 86 and 138 of the Constitution.
The two Articles require votes to be counted and verified and the results announced by the presiding officers at the polling stations.
A subsequent judgment of the court determined that the results as announced at the polling stations form the primary data of the elections and shall not be altered, not even by the Supreme Court.
Democratic Party leader Justin Muturi delivers his speech during the launch of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Strategic Plan 2024–2029 and Election Operations Plan 2025–2027 at Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi on June 24, 2026.
Photo credit: Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation Media Group
“The presidential results tallied, verified and declared at the 290 constituency levels are final, binding and cannot be revised elsewhere,” said Mr Muturi, noting that the NTC is an “unnecessary baggage to Kenyans.”
“NTC has previously led to dramatic and costly consequences, nearly derailing elections, creating confusion and becoming synonymous with mistrust and a divided IEBC,” added Mr Muturi as he outlined “the legal battle to remove illegal verification powers to prevent a repeat of past controversies like the 2022 Bomas drama.”
Mr Havi argued that the Bomas tallying centre is not provided for in the Constitution and called for it to be scrapped “to restore credibility to presidential elections”, labelling Bomas as the electoral process’ “weakest link”.
“The presidential results should be announced at the constituency level across all 290 constituencies, drawing a parallel to the United States system where winners are declared state by state,” said the former LSK boss.
Presidential election petition
However, former IEBC commissioner Paul Kurgat reminded Mr Havi that “the Constitution does not name a building as the Presidential Tallying Centre.”
“It constitutionalises the process, not a permanent venue. The location is governed by electoral law.”
He reminded Mr Havi that Regulation 84 of the Elections (General) Regulations, 2012, requires final tallying to take place at a venue gazetted by IEBC, the presidential tallying centre to be located in Nairobi and tallying centres to be in public buildings.
“So, whether stakeholders propose Bomas, KICC, Anniversary Towers, Kasarani, Talanta Stadium or another site, the legal question is not the prestige of the address. The chosen venue must satisfy the law and be formally gazetted,” says the former IEBC commissioner.
On August 9, 2022, the country held the third general election under the 2010 Constitution.
Former Law Society of Kenya President Nelson Havi.
Photo credit: Lucy Wanjiru | Nation Media Group
Transmission of the results of the general election was done via the Kenya Integrated Electoral Management System (KIEMS), a technology used in biometric voter registration and on election day for voter identification, as well as the transmission of election results from polling stations to the NTC.
During the 2017 presidential election petition, which led to the nullification of the 2017 presidential election results, the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Maraga, noted that “in a presidential election, after counting the votes in the polling stations, the IEBC shall tally and verify the count and declare the result.”
“The critical element here is the duty placed upon the commission to verify the results before declaring them. To ensure that the results declared are the ones recorded at the polling station,” ruled the highest court in the land.
The Supreme Court noted that “not to vary, change or alter the results, the duty to verify in Article 138 is squarely placed upon the IEBC.”
“This duty runs all the way, from the polling station to the constituency level and finally, to the National Tallying Centre.
“There is no disjuncture in the performance of the duty to verify,” the court determined.
According to the Supreme Court, this duty is exercised by the various agents or officers of the IEBC — “the Presiding Officer at a polling station, the Returning Officer at the constituency level, and the Chair at the National Tallying Centre.”
“How did we manage elections before it?” posed Dr Grignon, noting that “elections are governed by the law and must be conducted in accordance with the law and the Constitution.”
But even as the opposition ruled out the relevance of the NTC, Mr Kurgat and Mr Boya Molu, a former IEBC commissioner, emphasised the relevance of Article 138(3)(c) of the Constitution, which requires IEBC to tally and verify the presidential count and declare the result.
“The Presidential Tallying Centre should be understood as an electoral pressure valve, a place where political anxiety must be converted into public confidence through law, openness and verifiable figures,” says Mr Kurgat.
According to Mr Kurgat, previous court judgments have affirmed the centrality and finality of polling-station and constituency-level results, while recognising electronic transmission as a safeguard against manipulation.
Mr Molu noted that IEBC relies on the Elections Act and “other subsidiary legislation to operate the NTC.”
“Section 39 of the Elections Act dictates that the IEBC shall tally and verify presidential election results at the national level,” says Mr Molu.
He added that Regulation 83(2) of the Elections (General) Regulations outlines the procedural steps for the IEBC chairperson to verify Forms 34A and 34B at the NTC before declaring the winner.
Mr Kurgat notes that the presidential tallying centre “is therefore not important because of the building that houses it; its importance lies in what happens inside — lawful designation, open verification, institutional discipline and faithful respect for the polling-station record.”
The former IEBC commissioner, however, added that “a pressure valve works only if citizens trust it to release pressure safely. In presidential elections, that trust must be built before the declaration is made.”
While delivering the judgment in the 2022 presidential election petition, the Supreme Court noted that “we must hasten to clarify that the responsibility of tallying and verifying the results of a presidential election at the NTC vests in the commission as a collective entity.”
“While that of declaring the result vests exclusively in the chairperson. The collectivity of the commission must be viewed in the context of its extant roles during the preparation for, and actual conduct of, a general election.”
The Supreme Court of Kenya in Nairobi.
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
The Supreme Court went on to state that “in this regard, the commission may at one time be the chairperson and the requisite number of other commissioners.”
In the 2022 petition, ODM, by way of illustration, noted that IEBC had indicated that the presidential election results in Forms 34A, completed at the polling stations, would be transmitted to the NTC by a compressed colour photo image which complied with the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) standard.
However, ODM claimed that Forms 34A on IEBC’s online Public Portal “were not only in black and white but also in the Portable Document Format (PDF) despite being captured in JPEG format by the KIEMS kits,” heightening NTC fears.
“The process of converting an image to another form altered the substance and undermined the purpose and integrity of the transmission process, such that the new version of the document was no longer a true likeness of the image of the original Forms 34A which were uploaded at the polling station,” said ODM.
It noted that “the only reasonable inference to be drawn from this state of affairs was that the process of conversion of the files from JPEG to PDF, whether automated or manual by human intervention, was predisposed to manipulation either through replacement of whole files or amendment of sections.”
This was, however, disputed by the IEBC, even as the Supreme Court issued orders that the ballot boxes of selected polling stations be opened for inspection, scrutiny and recount.
A report on the outcome of the scrutiny and verification of votes cast and garnered by each of the presidential candidates per selected polling station, submitted to the Supreme Court, indicated that there was no variance between results as captured in Form 34A and the recount.
In light of this finding, the Supreme Court established that there was no “credible evidence to support the claim that Forms 34A presented to agents differed from those uploaded to the Public Portal.”
“The registrar’s report confirmed the authenticity of the original forms in the sampled polling stations. There were no significant differences between the Forms 34A uploaded on the Public Portal and the physical Forms 34A delivered to the NTC that would have affected the overall outcome of the presidential election,” the court established.
