On the eve of the official declaration of the Ol Kalou parliamentary by-election results, a group of young software developers and volunteers had already independently verified nearly two-thirds of the constituency's votes through People's IEBC, a citizen-led election monitoring platform that publishes polling station results and official Forms 35A on its website in near real time.
By midnight on Friday, People's IEBC, a citizen-led election monitoring initiative, had tallied results from 93 of the constituency's 144 polling stations.
Their independent count projected a commanding lead for Democratic Congress Party (DCP) candidate Sammy Ngotho, who had garnered 85.7 per cent of the vote, followed by UDA's Samuel Muchina with 12.7 per cent and Jubilee's Wilson Mwaniki with 0.7 per cent.
Yet despite demonstrating that ordinary citizens, supported by artificial intelligence, could independently verify election results in near real time, the pilot also exposed the practical, legal and technological hurdles that stand in the way of scaling such an initiative.
The exercise, according to founder Daniel Miringa, became less about proving that the technology works and more about learning what must change before the model can be deployed during larger elections.
"Our objective wasn't to replace the IEBC. It was to test whether citizens,” Miringa said, “supported by technology, can independently verify election results. We learnt a lot from Ol Kalou."
Volunteers monitoring the remaining 51 polling stations were unable to submit Form 35A results after police dispersed crowds at some polling stations, including AC Primary Ol Kalou and Mumbi Primary, using water cannons, restricting access to polling stations to election officials and accredited party agents.
"Our volunteers were unable to access several polling stations after police dispersed crowds using water cannons," Miringa said. "Once the situation changed, only IEBC officials and accredited party agents remained inside the stations, making it impossible for our volunteers to obtain and transmit the Forms 35A."
In other polling stations, some volunteer observers withdrew at the last minute after getting other commitments, leaving several stations without anyone to upload the official declaration forms.
As a result, People's IEBC was forced to wait for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to upload the remaining Forms 35A before completing its independent tally.
For Miringa, the incomplete count highlighted one of the project's biggest weaknesses.
"We realised we need backup observers at every polling station," he said. "Relying on one volunteer is risky because unexpected circumstances can prevent them from completing the assignment."
The Ol Kalou by-election marked the first field deployment of People's IEBC, a civic technology platform that combines trained human observers with artificial intelligence to independently verify election results.
Unlike the IEBC, the initiative neither conducts elections nor declares winners.
Instead, trained observers stationed at polling centres photograph the official Form 35A after vote counting ends. The images are uploaded to the platform, where artificial intelligence first verifies that the uploaded document is authentic before extracting the figures using image-recognition technology.
The extracted results are then automatically tabulated and published on a public dashboard, allowing citizens to compare polling station results independently.
"The goal is transparency." Miringa explained. "Instead of asking citizens to simply trust aggregated figures, they can see the results directly from individual polling stations."
Hours before polls opened, People's IEBC detected what the team described as an attempted cyberattack targeting its online platform.
According to Miringa, a single internet address generated more than 200,000 requests to the system's database overnight in what appeared to be an automated attempt to overwhelm the servers.
"We received over 200,000 requests from one IP address from Wednesday evening," he said. "It implied that one device was intentionally trying to gain access using automated computer programs."
"The attack was unsuccessful." Miringa said. "The platform continued functioning despite the unusually high traffic."
People's IEBC's servers are configured to process up to 500,000 requests, meaning the malicious traffic remained below the platform's capacity.
Even so, the incident prompted engineers to strengthen security measures by blocking the offending internet address and introducing rate limits that automatically block devices making more than 100 requests every minute.
For the five-member team of graduates aged between 21 and 26 developing the platform, the incident underscored how vulnerable civic technology initiatives can become during politically sensitive events.
"It reminded us that cybersecurity must be part of election observation," Miringa said. "If you're building digital tools for elections, you must expect attempts to interfere with them."
Government officials, led by Energy Principal Secretary Alex Wachira, pose for a group photo with some residents of Ol Kalou who were presented with six-kilogram gas cylinders each on July 7, 2026.
Photo credit: Boniface Mwangi | Nation Media Group
Beyond the technical challenges, however, the Ol Kalou pilot exposed broader operational lessons.
One of the most significant, according to Miringa, is that future deployments cannot rely solely on independent volunteers.
The initiative now plans to work closely with accredited election observation organisations, including the Elections Observation Group (ELOG) and Uraia Trust's Uamuzi platform, to strengthen its field presence and avoid duplication.
"We need partnerships," Miringa said. "There are organisations that already have years of experience observing elections. Working together would improve coverage, coordination and access."
Without accreditation, volunteers were unable to remain inside polling stations once police cleared the compounds after counting.
Accredited observers, however, are permitted to remain inside polling stations alongside election officials and party agents until declaration forms are completed.
"We have realised accreditation is important," Miringa said. "It would allow our observers to access polling stations legally until the results forms are issued."
Although People's IEBC displayed extracted results online, users could not directly download the original Forms 35A.
"We want every uploaded Form 35A to be downloadable," Miringa said. "Citizens should not only see the extracted numbers but also have access to the original documents themselves. That improves transparency because anyone can independently verify the results."
During the Ol Kalou by-election, much of People's IEBC's public engagement happened through TikTok, where the team has built a sizeable following among young Kenyans.
While the platform generated considerable interest, Miringa believes relying on a single social media platform limited the initiative's reach.
"In future we need to publish on multiple platforms," he said. "Different audiences consume information differently. If we want more Kenyans to engage with election data, we have to meet them where they are."
Initially, organisers intended to deploy observers at registration centres rather than individual polling stations.
One registration centre often supervises several polling stations, making comprehensive observation impossible with only one volunteer.
The team therefore reopened recruitment and expanded deployment from about 73 observers to 142 volunteers, enabling coverage of every polling station in the constituency.
Volunteers underwent training before polling day and were instructed to report to stations only after voting had closed to minimise disruption and focus exclusively on observing vote counting and collecting official declaration forms.
For Miringa, the by-election has demonstrated that technology alone cannot guarantee transparent elections.
Success depends just as much on logistics, partnerships, legal access, cybersecurity and public confidence.
Despite the setbacks, he considers the pilot successful because it answered critical questions ahead of future elections.
Miringa said the incomplete tally, attempted cyberattack and logistical challenges exposed weaknesses that the team now intends to address before deploying the platform in future elections.
Among the changes they are now working on is working with accredited election observation organisations, deploying backup observers at every polling station, seeking IEBC accreditation, making uploaded Forms downloadable by the public and publishing results across multiple digital platforms.
He described the Ol Kalou by-election as the initiative's first real-world test, arguing that the experience provided practical lessons that would help shape future deployments.
"We now know what works and what does not." He said. "The next step is improving the system so that, by the next election, we are better prepared to help citizens independently verify the results."
