20100802
Nation

Nairobi — Eighty per cent of the constituencies will convey their results using the new Electronic Voter Tallying system.

Results from 21,000 polling stations out of 27,689 will be transmitted electronically simultaneously to both the constituency tallying centre and the national tallying centre at Bomas of Kenya in Nairobi.

According to IIEC Information and Communication Technology director Dismas Ong'ondi, the maiden use of the e-tallying countrywide is expected to set a trend to other countries in the region to adopt the use of the technology in elections.

Mr Ong'ondi describes e-tallying as a 'home grown solution 'for use in national exercises like the referendum and the elections and its used is aimed at inculcating as sense of transparency and accountability to the voters and other observers. According to Mr Ong'ondi, 210 ICT officers are stationed in the constituencies to ensure that the relying of the results runs without hitches.

"In case of an ICT problem at the constituency level, it will be referred to the regional ICT officers," Mr Ong'ondi said.

The country has been divided into 17 regions with IT experts to assist the respective centres in case of transmission problems.However, the electronic results are provisional and will await the arrival of the Form 6 at the national tallying centre at Bomas.

"We are using low-cost mobile phones that we bought at a subsidised cost of Sh2,600 each," Mr Ong'ondi told the Nation in an interview at Bomas of Kenya yesterday.

Mr Ong'ondi dismissed claims that the phones could be used for other purposes other than sending referendum data.In case the phone gets lost, Mr Ong'ondi said that the phone will be disabled to prevent its use by another party other than its intended purpose for the national referendum.The phones are have a long battery life that can last until a week, Mr Ong'ondi pointed out.

"The cell phones are specially configured with Internet Protocol (IP) address that will strictly transmit results from a specific polling centre," he clarified.

An IP address is a numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.

The laptops are also fully charged and expected to last at least for the relying of results though Mr Ong'ondi pointed out that most, if not all, constituency tallying centres had access to electricity. The IIEC also has stand-by generators in case of power blackouts.

Mr Ong'ondi pointed out that the electoral body had mapped the country and worked with the country to identify regions as per network dominant in the area to use to send the results.

"I anticipate that the process will be highly successful," he said.

In places where the signal is poor, Mr Ong'ondi said the IIEC officials had been asked to drive to the nearest place where the reception was stronger.

However, Mr Ong'ondi said he did not foresee any hitches as most of the constituency tallying centres were well covered.One can also follow the tallying by sending a message to 3007. In 18 of the constituencies where voters were registered using EVR system both the electronic format of the register known as the e-poll book will be used alongside the manual register to confirm the authenticity documents presented at the polling centre.

"A voter who registered using the EVR will swipe their fingers and the system will then match the fingerprints and provide details," Mr Ong'ondi said.

However, the manual register will also be used in the 18 constituencies.After the voters name has been confirmed as present, his or her name will then be crossed out and be issued with the ballot papers.

The voter will proceed to the polling booth.

Mr Ong'ondi pointed out that results at Bomas of Kenya will suppress the display of votes from the polling centres as they are too many to be relayed on the screen at a go.

"The tallying system will automatically aggregate the constituency votes and send them to the Bomas of Kenya," he said.