NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 6 – The country may next year start full scale electronic voting after a team of international consultants arrived in Nairobi to assist in developing a master plan for e-voting in line with the Constitution.
The team from IBM’s Corporate Service Corps Programme will volunteer their expertise for the next four weeks after which they will present findings and a plan to the government.
“IBM is partnering with the Government of Kenya to propose a framework that addresses Kenyan voting challenges,” said IBM Country General Manager Anthony Mwai.
“Our consultants will review the experience of the recent electronic voter registration pilot and compare this with global e-voter frameworks and evolving standards,” he added.
The IBM team will work alongside the Kenya ICT Board and other organisations to review the transition from current voting procedures, set out standards and governance for an e-voting system and help streamline e-voting security and protocols.
The team of 12 IBM employees from 11 countries will work from Nakuru.
It will also work with the Directorate of E-government to increase productivity, scalability, security and ease of usage of existing e-Government services, helping to encourage participation in government processes even in the country’s most remote communities.
The Kenya Education Network Trust will also be involved to promote it as the national research and education network of choice in the country through open educational content development.
In April last year, the Interim Independent Electoral Commission carried out a 10 day pilot project for electronic voter registration in 18 constituencies.
The commission estimated that it would cost about Sh10billion to roll out the system countrywide.
The plan comes a week after House speaker Kenneth Marende also announced that Parliament would undergo a major digital transformation, with the introduction of electronic voting for MPs during debates.
The Speaker said this would help save time during proceedings which would also be streamed live over the internet as part of ongoing modernisation of parliament’s main debating chamber which is expected to be complete by November this year.
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