NASA suffers another major blow as court allows manual backup

The manual back-up system will be used in the August 8, 2017 polls.

This is after the High Court dismissed a case by the opposition to have Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) use exclusive electronic system.

The court ruled that the impact in case the exclusive electronic system fails would throw the entire elections into jeopardy and imperil the democracy of the country.

“The court, therefore, finds that it would not be feasible to declare that the elections to be held on the 8th of August 2017 be exclusively electronic,” ruled the Judges.

The court further ruled that Regulations 69 and 83 of the Elections Regulations 2012 amounted to complementary mechanism envisaged by the Constitution.

Regarding public participation, the three-Judge bench dismissed allegations that there was no public participation and ruled that the law was approved by the Parliament which represents Kenyans.

Court also dismissed submissions to have the elections postponed if the systems fails.

The ruling was read by Justices George Kimondo, Hedwing Ong’udi and Alfred Mabeya.

In the case, NASA wanted IEBC compelled to use exclusive electronic in voter identification and transmission of results.

NASA claimed that IEBC has failed to put in place the complementary system, consult relevant stakeholders or even engage the public to come up with the said system.

The opposition said using the manual system was a scheme to rig the elections, and it would boycott the elections if the manual system was forced on them.