A Kenyans votes [Photo/Capital FM]
Let's talk about mandatory voting. First things first, I do not support laws that make it compulsory for anyone to vote.
Prof Kagwanja in an opinion piece published in the Daily Nation proposes an introduction of compulsory voting in Kenya.
The article as I see is a reaction to the boycott by NASA in the recently concluded elections. Is compulsory voting good for Jubilee or good for NASA?
The Kenyan presidential election has always been won fairly or unfairly based on voter turnout. I say unfairly because there have always been claims of voter turnout being manipulated especially in party strongholds.
Part of the reason why swing zones experience low voter turnout is due to the comparable strength of party agents in monitoring and preventing rigging.
The KIEMS kits providing electronic voter identification were actually introduced to cure this mischief. The idea was to ensure that votes relayed in the manual forms tally with those in the KIEMS kits.
But will compulsory voting benefit NASA or Jubilee? My take is it benefits NASA. Here is why.
1. It cures the problem of low voter registration in NASA strongholds. This is currently not a problem in Jubilee strongholds.
2. It cures the problem of relatively low voter turnout in opposition strongholds.
3. It reduces chances of vote rigging since we can achieve more than 95 percent turnout with little space left to manipulate.
4. In case of rigging a ballot, recount becomes easier than doing a repeat election since there is little room for ballot stuffing.
This opinion piece appeared for the first time on Ezra Omolo Facebook page.