Mahat Somane: Here are the IEBC numbers… not the fiction created by petitioners
Lawyer Mahat Somane has discredited Supreme Court petitions, describing their calculations as an old litigation approach in numbers for shock and awe.
Mahat, who is representing the IEBC and its chairperson, sifted through the figures and combed through voter turnout and suppression, anomalies stated in various affidavits, and overall results indicated in various forms and the efficiency and processes while using the KIEMS kits.
Voter suppression
Mahat, who was using a PowerPoint presentation, displayed data comparing locations where elections had been postponed with neighboring stations. According to his IEBC’s findings, the postponement had no effect on voter turnout.
“In Rongai where MP elections were postponed, voter turnout was higher than in neighboring areas. The same trend is seen in Kwa Njenga Ward in Nairobi where MCA elections were postponed.” Mahat said.
“Kakamega and Mombasa Counties also had higher turnout compared to neighbouring areas, based on the comparative analysis by IEBC,” he added.
Votes variance
Mahat stated that no evidence has been offered to demonstrate inexplicable differences in votes cast for President and other elective positions.
The prisoners and diaspora, according to Mahat, only vote for the President. In other cases, stray ballots and differences in rejected votes for various electoral seats were to chastise for the discrepancies.
Giving an example, Mahat said: “Variance of Presidential and Woman Representative was 9,419 which can be accounted for.”
According to Mahat, the only difference between presidential and gubernatorial votes in Kenya was 900 votes, not the thousands that Raila Odinga’s running partner Martha Karua stated in her affidavit.
Mahat further stated that locations where elections were disrupted by violence were not included in the final total for various elective positions.
Voter turnout
Mahat explained to the court that voter turnout was calculated individually for each polling station. According to Mahat, after the polling station opens and Kenyans begin voting, the kits would begin transmitting the number of persons who have voted over two hours, depending on the network.
“Reporting is done per KIEMS, per polling station of the reporting KIEMS,” Mahat said.
“We never said total turnout. We said total KIEMS reporting. We also haven’t included the manual count. On 10th August when all the Kiems had reported from polling stations, the turnout was 14,239,862.” he added.
Mahat said that 86,889 voters were identified via the printed manual register. Mahat stated that the 64.6% turnout declared by Chebukati was based on reporting KIEMS kits rather than the gazetted voter register.
Doctored forms and the IEBC portal
Mahat stated that the petitioners had presented doctored paperwork to the court as proof because there had been no complaints from agents at the national tallying center.
Mahat said that IEBC also provided experts to help agents and returning officers verify security features of each form presented at BOMAS of Kenya.
The lawyer also refuted assertions that “hackers” uploaded amended forms to the IEBC portal, claiming that the commission would have received a report detailing who was responsible and the date. He said that there was no indication that more than 11,000 forms were uploaded in 8 minutes because each form contains a millisecond timestamp.
Mahat urged the petitioners lawyers to explain how Raila Odinga’s votes were deducted and added to William Ruto at different polling stations despite their agents going through all of the forms on the IEBC portal and those filed by various returning officers and agreeing on their results at the tallying center.
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