Revealed: One million voters sought to transfer from their 2017 polling station

One in 20 voters who registered in the 2017 General Election sought to transfer to a different polling station, the electoral commission has said.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said it had received 1,019,000 transfer requests, as it sought to clear the air on those that had no accompanying documents.

To transfer from a polling station, a voter has to fill a form, which would then be the basis of the transfer.

An unspecified number of the requests, IEBC has admitted, had no accompanying documents.

The 1.019 million transfer requests means approximately five percent of the 19.6 million registered in 2017 sought to move their places of voting.

Pertaining to the illegal transfer of voters ahead of the August 9 elections which has emerged, IEBC chief executive officer Marjan Hussein disclosed that they realised that illegality after a number of voters raised concerns while verifying their biometric data.

"The registration officer has the sole responsibility of ensuring that the register for his/her area is actually correct. He/She is the one who is responsible for effective transfer if there is any or even for registration of voter. The rule of the thumb is that for any transfer to be effective, there must be a corresponding form that is actually been filled and signed by the voter,"

"We have been receiving complaints and therefore, we have been trying to analyse to see whether these complaints that have been received during the verification process, are they actually legitimate or no. So we have come across some few that we are seeing that there could be existence or possibility that forms may not exist, therefore, that is when we decided to do a full-check," Mr Hussein explained.

He also reiterated the electoral agency's readiness and preparedness to conduct free, fair and credible election come August 9 hence no cause of alarm.

Mr Hussein on Tuesday evening in an interview with NTV said their systems remain efficient and effective.

"We are very confident in the systems we currently have and speaking to the verification process, access to the central server by the registration officer who are called the returning officers is through private network not through public network. It is actually through point to point and each and every returning officer has got access rights," said Mr Hussein.

 According to the IEBC CEO, following the 2017 Supreme Court ruling, the commission will only be transmitting the form 34A from polling stations to the national tallying center.

"When you talk about results transmission, the Supreme Court actually asserted itself as far as what are the results and what should be transmitted. It is very clear that what is to be transmitted actually is the form and not the text. That is form 34A for the purpose of presidential election from polling station to the constituency tallying center to the national tallying center," said Mr Hussein.
Ends