The ongoing demands by the Kenyan opposition leader to have an audit of the computer server at the Electoral body may have no impact on the supreme court decision on the recent presidential election.
According to Kenya’s former Attorney General Amos Wako (pictured above) the Supreme Court has constitutional jurisdiction to determine electoral outcome disputes hence the server audit cannot subvert the decision of the apex court.
According to Azimio leader Raila Odinga, access to IEBC servers is the only way to verify the presidential election results of 2022.
“The audit cannot reverse the decision of the Supreme Court; it’s a constitutional and legal process. The audit is like a post mortem which cannot revise the dead body but can tell you the cause of the dead body,” Wako told the National Dialogue Committee.
Wako termed the election server audit as an aftermath process aimed at curing the shortcomings in the polls.
“We want to identify the weaknesses, loopholes, and shortfalls in the polls which can be rectified before the next election. This is the only way we can improve the electoral process and instill confidence of the people in it,” the Former Attorney General said.
Wako explained that the voter’s confidence in the electoral agency is wilted in the process of tallying and declaration of the election outcome further causing voter apathy among the electorate.
“The more debate on the opening of the election servers, the more suspicion are raised. That where there is no smoke there must be some fire,” he said.
“If the doubts are not cleared,it could erode the confidence in future elections and reduce the figure of people participating in such elections,”Wako added.
Others Speakout
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has argued there is no constitutional provision to audit the servers of the 2022 general election as has been rooted for by opposition leaders.
In the results or election server, there are two sets of data: The voters’ data that include who voted, where they voted, what time they voted, and which method was used to identify them as a voter, and actual log data which indicate time stamps and includes specific details one would attribute to a particular action.
IEBC failed to submit a forensically recorded image of the server storing form 34C. The commission raised security concerns about their server data and hosted applications, which would expose their complete virtual server infrastructure.
IEBC also failed to reveal the owners of system administration password(s), citing the exposure of system administrators’ names and identities as a major security threat to administrators.
