KPMG: Over 1m dead Kenyan voters could be in the register
Friday June 09 2017
A Kenyan man registers as a voter in Meru County on February 15, 2016. Some 5,427 records of voters in the register do not have biometric fingerprint images. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
KPMG has released a report on its audit of the voter register to be used in the Kenyan August 8 General Election.
The scrutiny established that 92,277 dead people are in the roll and the audit firm has asked the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to expunge them.
KPMG said it managed to identify the 92,277 dead voters using data obtained from the Civil Registration Department (CRS) and estimates that an additional 1,037,260 could be in the roll.
The data from the Civil Registration Department, the audit firm notes, was inconclusive.
Dead-voter estimate
“In the period November 2012 to December 2016, of the expected deaths, CRS data indicates that 1,534,009 were aged 18 years and above, and of these, only 621,832 were registered,” KMPG says in its report.
“At the time of preparing the audit report, CRS had provided to KPMG a list containing 435,175 deceased persons of all ages. Of these only 196,988 records had complete details which could be used as a reference to the register of voters.”
The 1,037,260 dead-voter estimate, which is based on an enrolment rate of 77.5 per cent, takes into account the number of registered deaths for persons aged 18 years and above, whose detailed death records were not provided by the civil registrar, and the expected deaths for persons aged 18 years and above who have not been registered.
Data inaccuracies
KPMG has recommended that the IEBC work with the civil registrar to obtain the full details of deceased persons based on the total registered deaths from November 2012 to December 2016.
“CRS have indicated that they have another 350,000 details of deceased persons which will be immediately availed to the IEBC,” KMPG reports says.
“These should be used to expunge details of deceased persons before the Register is certified”.
The audit also revealed that 5,427 records of voters in the register do not have biometric fingerprint images; while 2.9 million of the 19.4 million records in the roll contain inaccuracies, including inconsistencies in gender and date of birth.