By Pharis Kinyua (On the ground for Jamhuri News)
The exercise started across all 17 constituencies in the county with voters turning out in large numbers to vote.
However, there were few hitches in some of the polling centers such as Moi Avenue Primary School where the exercise kicked off quite late.
In other polling centers like Makadara Constituency, voters protested a decision by Jubilee Party to use the party’s membership register for voting and not ID cards as it had announced weeks ago.
Some of the voters were turned away after their names missed in the register.
But Jubilee’s National Election Board Chairman, Edward Musangi defended the party’s decision to use Party membership register instead of IDs on account that it will make it hard for infiltration as reports privy to them indicate.
“We have made this decision after high-level consultations and it is important to protect the party from infiltration,” He told journalists Wednesday morning at the party’s headquarters in Pangani.
Another complaint was that some voters who changed their polling stations could not find their names on the polling station they changed to.
“I was a voter at Ngara but when I relocated to Makadara, I changed to become a voter here at Bahati primary but my name is missing and I have to go home without voting,” said Evans Mokari.
This led to an altercation between Senator Mike Sonko and a presiding officer at Bahati primary school.
“The process is very unfair,” he said. He cast his vote at Bidii Primary school in Buruburu while his challenger Peter Kenneth cast his at Bahati Primary school.
Kenneth cited there was a lack of uniformity in the process. He said some polling centers had clerks filling the names of voters by hand.
Sonko has, however, maintained that he must be on the ballot come August 8. He has urged his supporters to turn out in large numbers and vote for him.
He is up against a bruising battle with Kenneth who is also seeking for a Jubilee ticket to face off with ODM’s Evans Kidero.