This is everything you should be aware of regarding the general election on August 9. There are 46,233 polling stations, up from 40,833 in 2017. This is because the number of registered voters stands at 22,120,458 which is an increase from 19,611,423 in the previous election. More than 6,000 new polling places are now available across the country. According to the law, no polling station should have more than 700 voters.
Nairobi has the highest number of additional polling stations followed by rift valley province. Nairobi has 2,415,310 registered voters, and 960 additional polling places, bringing its total to 4,338 from 3,378 in the previous election. In the former Rift Valley province, 949 more polling places were added having a total number of 2,670,969 registered voters.
The Mt Kenya region, with a total of 10 counties, having a total of 3.1 million voters has 894 new stations. In Nyanza, 802 extra polling stations were added across the 6 counties, and the total number of voters in this region is 3,120,732. There are 355 more polling places in Ukambani, and 1,699,724 people are registered to vote across the three counties of Machakos, Makueni, and Kitui. The Coast region has 517 stations more with a total of 1.96 million registered voters while the North Eastern counties now have 591 additional stations.
Over 500,000 people will be employed by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to manage the election. These comprise 290 ICT clerks, 290 logistics officers, 5,827 support electoral trainers, 323,603 polling clerks, 92,458 presiding officers and deputies, 94 county returning officers and deputies, and 580 constituency returning officers and deputies. With four running for president, this race has attracted 16,098 candidates. 2,132 of them are running for 290 parliamentary seats in the house, 340 in the Senate, and 266 in the governorships. 1,450 ward representative positions have a total of 12,994 applicants.
Ms. Kimei eying the Kericho Woman Representative, Mr. Kimutai eying the MCA seat in Ravine ward, and Mr. Aden eying the MCA seat in Sabena in Garissa’s Lagdera constituency were running unopposed. Therefore, IEBC declared this candidate lawfully elected.
In the financial year 2021–2022, the agency received a grant of Sh22.9 billion; however, in May, an additional Sh21 billion was given thus, adding up the total amount required to run this year’s election to Sh44 billion. The allocations for this year’s elections are slightly less than the Sh49.8 billion spent in the 2017 General Election. The amount used to rerun the election in 2017 was Sh10.3 billion.
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