Six Kenyans urged a court on Wednesday to suspend a controversial decision by election officials to scrap a tender process and directly procure an electronic voting system for the August polls. The petition is the umpteenth disruption to already chaotic election preparations, a sensitive process in a country where accusations of rigging accompany almost every vote. The tender was awarded to French defence and biometrics company Safran last month, pushing aside another French company Gemalto, which was lined up to win the contract in a bidding process launched in December. In court documents seen by AFP, the six petitioners argue that the entire process was “manipulated and rigged… to culminate in an artificial crisis that would then be used to justify the single sourcing”.
The two companies were among 10 vying for a contract to provide biometric equipment to identify voters on the day of the August 8 presidential and parliamentary elections, and send results electronically to a central hub.
The aim of the system is to prevent fraud through double voter registration or impersonation which are rife when manual voter registers are used.
Accusations of fraud after 2007 elections fuelled post-poll violence that left more than 1 100 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Full Article: Spat over Kenyan electronic vote tender goes to court | News24.