The Independent Electoral and Boundaries intends to strike out 1.18 registered names from the voters register as it continues its preparation of the August 9 elections.

This follows an preliminary report by KPMG which was contracted to audit the voter register, that found that the current register bore some anomalies in the 22.5 million database of registered voters.

In the 1.18 million who were deemed ineligible to take part in the polls, 246,465 included dead voters, 481,711 are thos who have been registered more than once and 226,143 are those voters were registered with IDs that do not validly belong to them.

Additionally, 164,269 voters are to be knocked off the list owing to the invalid identification documents, that is either IDs or passports used in their registration.

IEBC Chairperson Wafula Chebukati made the announcement on the night of Wednesday, June 8 at a press conference at Bomas of Kenya, stating that the final report would be received on Monday, June 16 and thereafter would proceed to publish the final register on June 20 to June 22, that had been slated for June 9.

“As you may be aware, the Commission engaged KPMG on April 7, 2022 to conduct an audit of the Register of Voters, while the continuous voter registration activity was ongoing,” said Chebukati.

“The Commission received a preliminary audit report with useful information, including 246,465 deceased voters, 481,711 duplicate records and 226,143 voters registered with IDs that don’t validly belong to them, 164,269 registered with voter records with invalid identification documents (IDs and Passports) that have to be addressed prior to certification and publishing of the register,” he added.

The publishing date was pushed to avail more time to the IEBC to address the findings that arose from the audit report such as the invalidity of passports and IDs before making the register public.

“Previously, the Commission had announced that it would certify and publish the register of voters on or before 9th June 2022. However, due to implementation of preliminary audit findings on the register, the Commission has decided to address the findings prior to certifying the register for publication on/or before 20th June 2022,” he said.

KPMG’s Head of Advisory Gerald Kasimu echoed Chebukati's statements, stating that the audit presented various irregularities that needed to be addressed before the gazetting of the final register, especially because the number of voters has increased from 19.6 million voters in 2017 to 22.5 million voters.

Some of the issues that have arisen include the complaints by a section of the electorate of being transferred to areas they did not wish to vote from.

“We have identified these issues of concern and we expect that by the time we issue our final report we can confirm to the commission that we are comfortable with the implementation of the recommendations that we have issued,” he said.