Election materials belonging to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) were on Monday, August 8, destroyed while being ferried to the Tharaka Nithi Tallying Centre.
The materials were intercepted by residents who protested and raised an alarm after realising some of the materials were marked as belonging to Fifa constituency in Garissa county.
It was then that the angry crowd destroyed the materials by tearing them apart. A video seen by Kenyans.co.ke showed police officers standing close to the destroyed election materials.
The regional IEBC officer stated that the election materials in question were intercepted on their way to the tallying centre in Igambang'ombe from where they would be distributed to the polling stations.
"The materials that were intercepted are ones which were in deficit which we had requested from Nairobi. They had arrived this morning and were headed to Tharaka centre from where the returning and presiding officers would transfer them to the polling stations," the IEBC official explained.
Tharaka-Nithi County has three constituencies with 213,154 registered voters and 625 polling station, according to IEBC records.
Chogoria leads with highest number of registered voters at 20,531, followed by Mwimbi (14,364), Muthambi (11,935 ), Ganga (11,679) and Mitheru (10,220).
Tharaka incident is one among a few that the media has reported as the Commission races against time to distribute election materials to various parts of the country in readiness for the polls.
There are concerns that incidents such as mix-up of election materials could lead to delays when polling station open on Tuesday, August 9, at 6am.
In the coastal region, there was a confusion when some of the ballot papers for Kilifi County were found in Mombasa.
A video shared by Nation showed IEBC officials unpacking the materials which had been mixed up.
"These materials are meant for Kilifi County, yet we are in Mombasa," an IEBC officials confirmed.
