Our attention has been drawn to a statement issued by Hon Raila Odinga on the issue of the quality of the register of voters. In our last two press briefings, we highlighted steps being taken by the Commission to clean up the register of voters.
We already informed the public of the 128,926 duplicate ID numbers in our BVR database which could be attributed to: (a) data entry errors at the time of registration (b) attempts by individuals to register more than once or more that one individual sharing one ID card to register. As stated, the Commission shall be making public the list of the duplicate IDs by Friday this week.
We wish to confirm that some of the numbers highlighted by the CORD Leader are indeed part of the 128,926 ID numbers that are subject of the ongoing cleanup process. For the avoidance of doubt, most of these numbers were keyed into the system during the 2012 registration drive and do not relate to the current Mass Voter Registration campaign. This is a historical issue and should not be used to discredit the ongoing registration drive.
That said, the Commission is aware that there are Kenyans who have ID numbers reading: 00000002 or 00000023. These numbers may appear single digit 2 or double digits 23 respectively. It does not, therefore, mean that the two formats are different when it comes to identification. As stated yesterday by the Commission, the ID number will now be part of the unique identifiers in addition to the biometrics captured at registration.
The Commission wishes to assure that the process of cleaning up the register is in good hands. There should be no cause for alarm and Kenyans must focus on registering as voters given that we have only two weeks left.