Cases of faulty voter registration to the 2017 Kenya general elections are concentrated in certain wards in Kisumu East, Siaya, and Homa Bay. This is apparent in the IEBC data released last Saturday, Feb. 4, 2016. These wards are all located in the region of Nyanza – followed by some wards in Nairobi. The cases IEBC published constitute either mismatch of the given IDs with the ones in the National Registration Bureau or double (and more) registrations.
Manyatta ‘B’ and Kolwa East, both located in Kisumu East, are top – when it comes to faults in the registration process. These wards alone show 1,581 IDs that did either not match the National Registration Bureau records or were registered more than once for the 2017 elections (see table 1 below). If all of the Kenyan wards had produced that many mistakes, the number of wrong registrations would be well over one million instead of the 78,797 that IEBC-CEO Ezra Chiloba had published last Saturday. The IEBC Raw data with the names of incorrectly registered voters was analyzed by a team at RoGGKenya.org for regional distribution.
Nyanza on top of irregularities
After Manyatta ‘B’ and Kolwa East (Kisumu East) the wards with the most mismatches and multiples are West Sakwa and North Sakwa (in Bondo, Siaya County), West Ugenya (Ugenya, Siaya County), as well as South and Central Kasipul (Kasipul, Homa Bay). Even more wards Kisumu East are to be found in the top 20 of irregular data cases. As a constituency, Kisumu East is leading the list far ahead with 1,885 cases in all, followed by the Bondo with 1,082 cases. All of the top 5 constituencies are to be found in Nyanza followed by Nakuru and four Nairobi constituencies (see table 2 below).
Data may lead to individual IEBC offices
Why the mismatches are concentrated in certain wards in Kisumu East, Siaya, and Homa Bay leave much room to speculation. The cause may be negligence, the will to manipulate or other unknown factors – but for the sake of logic, it is very likely that the behavior of local officials plays a larger role than the voters themselves.
But this remains to be investigated, by state organs, media or NGOs. The data would probably lead to specific officials who are or were in charge of registering voters at the hotspot wards – allowing anybody to question these officials.
The IEBC data allowed the RoGGKenya analysts to also identify registration centers with irregularities way above the average (see table 3 below), namely:
- in Kisumu East: Konyango Market (320 cases), Manyatta ‘B” center (260), Wandiege Primary School (207), Buoye Primary School (100) and Orongo Primary School (98)
- in Bondo: Bondo Primary School (102 cases) and Bondo Open Air Market (96)
- Three registration elsewhere centers are also in the top ten: Mulolongo Primary School in Mavako/Machakos with 120 cases of incorrect registration and St. Monica Nur.School in Kajiado East/Kajiado (108 cases) plus Umoja 1 Primary School in Embakasi West / Nairobi.
There are 34 more registration centers with more than 50 cases of Double or wrong IDs – and those are also not equally distributed across the country.
RoGGKenya.org has the whole data
The following three tables illustrate the case and give additional data. if you want to investigate or report in media on the matter, contact editor ( at ) roggkenya.org to get the whole data for your own reference as a journalist.
One more number: 15,555 registration centers in Kenya counted up to five mismatches only while the same “errors” occurred 20 times to 60 times as frequently in the five registration centres in Kisumu East that are in the top 20.
Table 1: Irregularity Cases – the Top 20 Wards
| MANYATTA ‘B’ | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 787 |
| KOLWA EAST | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 594 |
| WEST SAKWA | BONDO | SIAYA | 521 |
| WEST UGENYA | UGENYA | SIAYA | 496 |
| SOUTH KASIPUL | KASIPUL | HOMA BAY | 428 |
| NORTH SAKWA | BONDO | SIAYA | 304 |
| CENTRAL KASIPUL | KASIPUL | HOMA BAY | 244 |
| NAIROBI CENTRAL | STAREHE | NAIROBI | 208 |
| KAJULU | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 196 |
| EASTLEIGH NORTH | KAMUKUNJI | NAIROBI | 195 |
| EMBAKASI | EMBAKASI EAST | NAIROBI | 180 |
| PUMWANI | KAMUKUNJI | NAIROBI | 167 |
| KAREN | LANGATA | NAIROBI | 166 |
| KOLWA CENTRAL | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 162 |
| SYOKIMAU/MULOLONGO | MAVOKO | MACHAKOS | 153 |
| NJORO | NJORO | NAKURU | 147 |
| NYALENDA ‘A’ | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 146 |
| PARKLANDS/HIGHRIDGE | WESTLANDS | NAIROBI | 146 |
| MAKINA | KIBRA | NAIROBI | 137 |
| RABAI/KISURUTINI | RABAI | KILIFI | 136 |
Table 2: Cases in the Top 10 Constituencies
| Cases in Constituency | CONSTITUENCY | COUNTY NAME |
|---|---|---|
| 1885 | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU |
| 1082 | BONDO | SIAYA |
| 812 | KASIPUL | HOMA BAY |
| 741 | UGENYA | SIAYA |
| 581 | NAIVASHA | NAKURU |
| 573 | LANGATA | NAIROBI |
| 573 | KAMUKUNJI | NAIROBI |
| 536 | STAREHE | NAIROBI |
| 535 | WESTLANDS | NAIROBI |
| 504 | TIGANIA EAST | MERU |
Table 3: The Top 10 of Registration Centres with Irregularity Cases
| KOYANGO MARKET | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 320 |
| MANYATTA ‘B’ CENTRE | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 260 |
| WANDIEGE PRIMARY SCHOOL | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 207 |
| MULOLONGO PRIMARY SCHOOL | MAVOKO | MACHAKOS | 120 |
| ST MONICA NUR.SCH | KAJIADO EAST | KAJIADO | 108 |
| BONDO PRIMARY SCHOOL | BONDO | SIAYA | 102 |
| BUOYE PRIMARY SCHOOL | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 100 |
| ORONGO PRIMARY SCHOOL | KISUMU EAST | KISUMU | 98 |
| BONDO OPEN AIR MARKET | BONDO | SIAYA | 96 |
