With 69 days to go to the election, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is in a worrying state with the emergence of various complications in the preparedness of the polls, as there are reports of irregular transfer of votes in the election body's electronic register.

In an emergency memo from the body's CEO to all county elections managers and senior election officers, the commission addressed the concern, stating that it had discovered that there were transfers in the voter's lists without the required statutory forms and directed that the election officials immediately reverse all transfers that were not supported by any documentation.

“Transfers happen when a voter requests and there is a form to fill which then the registration officer has to update the register if there are unauthorized cases where one finds themselves in a place they don’t want the commission investigates…,” stated Chairman Chebukati.

“Cases of transfers without one's knowledge shall be investigated and the commission has called for all transfer forms if there are such cases they will be returned back and if an officer was involved in the illegal transfer stern action will be taken, the commission will not tolerate that…” he added.

IEBC is also on the spot over the frequency of system failures being experienced in different parts of the country in the ongoing clearance of the prospective aspirants, as they complained of delays occasioned by poor network connectivity that led the electoral body to resort to manual clearance.

Many aspirants from  Garissa, Siaya and Kisii expressed their disappointment with the commission as they expected that this time around the exercise would go on smoothly, especially with the magnitude of taxpayer money channeled in the preparation of this year's polls.

"This is a concern we want to raise with the IEBC and all concerned with election management, please do not take us back to the rigorous days of the outdated manual process," Siyat Osman who is eyeing the Garissa Township parliamentary seat stated.

" The commission has been allocated such a large share of the budget, we are hoping that they get their act together so that when we get to the ballot we will not be met with such hiccups," activist Okiya Omtata who is eyeing the Busia County senatorial seat stated.