Court Orders Opening of IEBC Servers

The High Court has ordered the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to open the servers used in the Garissa Township parliamentary elections to allow read-only access to the data.

Judge Hedwing Ong'undi issued the directive following a petition filed by former National Assembly deputy speaker Farah Maalim seeking to overturn MP Aden Duale's win in the election.

In his petition, Mr Maalim, through lawyer Chahilu Edwin, noted that there was violation of the election laws which resulted to a lot of irregularities and illegalities.

Lawyer Chahilu faulted IEBC for the long delays deliberately created to discourage Maalim's followers, adding that his rival's supporters were allowed to vote more than twice.

[caption caption="Farah Maalim outside the law courts"][/caption]

He also alleged that the IEBC officials did not mark the voters with indelible ink after they were presented with IDs during voting.

Maalim, therefore, wants the court to declare that the National Assembly Majority Leader and the Chebukati-led team jointly committed election irregularities.

During the court hearing, Maalim also sought an order to secure the election materials used by IEBC to conduct Garissa South constituency elections on August 8th.

[caption caption="Aden Duale"][/caption]

The former deputy speaker who is a member of the Opposition lost the parliamentary seat to Duale of Jubilee Party.

As part of the Supreme court decision that nullified President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election, the court ordered the electoral commission to carry out a full audit of the servers.

The court found that unauthorised personnel had illegal access to the agency's servers, altered figures and made some deletions which compromised the credibility of the August 8 polls.

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