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Electronic election kit a big test for Kenya

Saturday November 03 2012
bvr

The first batch of 8,000 Biometric Voter Registration kits that landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on November 1. Picture: Billy Mutai

Kenya is gambling with cutting–edge technology to prepare a new and more accurate voter register for an election that will be taking place in a high-stakes political environment which the East African region is keenly watching.

The country has received the first batch of 8,000 biometric voter registration (BVR) kits from French manufacturers, Safran Morpho, ready to roll out one of the largest IT projects in East Africa, and thrusting preparations for the March 2013 general elections to its first decisive stages.

Kenya is keen to hold free and fair elections and is seeking to use the electronic kits to run a poll that will position it as a role model for Africa.

The March 4 poll is closely being watched by East African countries as a murky election in Kenya would send shocks in the region as happened in 2007 when violence erupted, disrupting supply chains to Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

With memories and experiences of the botched elections of 2007 difficult to erase, the country’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is approaching the voter registration knowing very well that a failed process could potentially have disastrous consequences.

The BVR kits have left Kenya with a Ksh7.3 billion ($86.9 million) debt it borrowed from Standard Chartered Bank to secure them. The loan was facilitated by the Canadian government.

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The voter registration, and election will be a litmus test for an elections body that is still struggling to demonstrate integrity and competence, having bungled the procurement of the BVR kits, forcing the state to intervene to provide a solution.

Making the stakes even higher for the IEBC is the fact that it is boxed by a constitutional provision which says that the elections must be held in March 2013.

In less than two months, the IEBC must put in place a completely new system to capture and store voter information, at the same time making sure that the register is secure and without errors.

The technology Kenya has adopted will identify voters by name, age, photograph and finger prints. It comprises a data capture machine consisting of a lap top, a finger print scanner and a printer. And each unit has an external drive for data storage, a long duration battery for power and a weather-proof case to protect the delicate electronics.

Registering 20 million voters in two months will be a massive exercise that is unlikely to be without glitches.

Because the kits are few, physically moving the equipment from one location to another will be a challenge.

In places where the experiment has been tried, a common mistake has been for operators to mix up codes for constituencies, leading to instances where voters did not find their names in the register on voting day.

When kits arrive late, the voter registers are invariably riddled with wrong names, missing data and a plethora of data quality issues.
In Nigeria which put in place a technologically based voters registrar, the debut of the voter registration exercise turned into a public relations disaster for the Independent National Electoral Commission when the equipment could not read the finger prints of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The highly publicised event dealt a major blow to the credibility of the process.

The commission then quickly assembled a team of experts, led by a Kenyan, Nyimbi Odero, and, in a matter of days, the voter registration process was brought back on track.

Nigeria achieved spectacular results, registering over 76 million people in just over three weeks using 132,000 BVR kits and 300,000 employees.

Today, Mr Odero, who now works at the Nigerian electoral commission, is widely celebrated and recognised for spearheading a technological breakthrough that made it possible for Nigeria to go to the elections with an accurate voters register. Al Jazeera Television recently aired a documentary of Mr Odera, highlighting his contribution to the success of Nigeria’s election.

In the initial stages, the Kenyan electoral commission had planned to borrow expertise from Nigeria, with a suggestion that Mr Odero come on board as a consultant. The prospects of this remain unclear.

In early 2011, a team of IEBC commissioners visited Nigeria to understand the country’s experiences with the BVR. One difference with Kenya’s situation is that in Nigeria, Odero and his team of ICT experts came up with a homegrown solution. They designed the data capture machines from scratch, from defining the components inside the computers, all the way through writing device drivers and the registration software.

Speaking with The EastAfrican from Lagos, Mr Odero explained that they chose to use homegrown software because they realised that they had to be in control of their systems to make it possible for them to solve problems quickly.

“It is extremely hard to communicate urgency to a vendor. Their only incentive is money. It is hard to make them go above and beyond their contractual obligations without lengthy and potentially expensive re-negotiations,” he said.

He said that Nigeria had in previous elections gone the route of purchasing BVR kits from vendors with dismal results. Clearly, the voter registration process will test IEBC’s competence and efficiency in major ways.

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