It’s all systems go for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) as it officially certified 19, 611, 423 Kenyans as eligible voters.
“The certified register of voters for the 2017 general election has a total of 19, 611, 423 voters,” sad IEBC Chairman Wafula Chebukati in a statement on Tuesday.
He added: “This number includes 4, 393 Diaspora in 5 countries and 5,528 registered in 118 prisons across the country.”
The official announcement on the total number of eligible registered voters by IEBC follows an audit of the voter register by KPMG.
The commission has expunged the names of 88, 602 dead people who were in the register as recommended by KPMG in its report.
Earlier, KPMG in its report had indicated that there could be 92, 277 dead voters in the register but Chebukati said the number decreased to 88, 602 to only what he termed as “reportees”.
He said that the commission cannot fully get rid of dead voters but said that through the Kenya Integrated Electoral Management System (KIEMS), no “dead voter” will be allowed to vote.
“We are aware that the register of voters cannot completely be rid of deceased persons,” he said adding, “However, we are confident that the KIEMS technology provided foolproof authentication on Election Day and there will be no room for mischief.”
IEBC will open up the register to scrutiny from the public as prescribed by the Elections Act. No changes can be made to the register though.
Analytics of the numbers in the register show that of the total number of voters in the register, 9, 930, 315 are youths aged between 18 and 35 (51 per cent).
IEBC has also zoned out 40, 883 polling stations in the country and anticipates each of them will not have more than 700 voters.
Also, Nairobi and Kiambu counties have the highest number or registered voters with 2.2 million and 1.18 million voters respectively
From the data, Central region has 2, 910465 registered voters while Nyanza region has 2, 688, 104 voters.
Rift valley which is made up of 14 counties has the highest number of voters, 4, 649, 768.