NASA says dead voters still in the audited register

The opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) has now demanded for the release of KPMG audit report on the voter register.

NASA Presidential candidate, Raila Odinga’s spokesman, Salim Lone, and campaign secretariat official, Adams Oloo, have said the new Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) SMS service for voter verification has revealed glaring errors in the audited voter register.

Speaking at the NASA secretariat, Lone also stated that NASA wants the IEBC to use Integrated Population Registration Service to exclude dead voters in the final voter register ahead of the August 8 polls.

The two NASA officials have further called on the IEBC to immediately call for a consultative meeting with major political parties to agree on the way forward regarding the final voter register.

NASA says that the release of the register reveals some worrying trends in IEBC preparedness.

“The Commission has been working for months to clean the register and yet two days after releasing it, IEBC withdrew the SMS service for voter verification which uses the short code 70000,” said NASA in a statement.

“This service had revealed serious flaws with the Register, as Kenyans in their zeal to determine their choice of their new government took to their phones and computers to check out their presence on the register, only to be startled by this flaw.”

“In addition, the names of voters who died as early as 2013 were discovered to be still on the register, while other voters had registered using ID numbers that do not exist in the national database of registration of persons.”

The Opposition has also accused IEBC of inflating voter figures in Tana River and Embu Counties.

ODM Secretary General, Agnes Zani, says the electoral agency should come clean on the matter, with the party having cited irregularities after the clean-up of the voter register as recommended by KPMG.

Zani further urged election observers such as the African Union to take note of the issues raised by the orange party, adding that the audit firm is being used by the ruling Jubilee coalition to manipulate the voters register.