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Officer admits 8,000-vote error
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- Published on Thursday, 02 October 2008 02:10
Mr Tobias Macharia, who was returning officer for the constituency, admitted before Justice Daniel Musinga that there was a discrepancy in tallying but maintained it would not have make much difference in the final results. Announcing the results at Tendere, the officer had accounted for about 38,000 votes but when he re-calculated the figures at KICC, he found there was a total of 45,000 votes.
“I reported the discrepancy to my seniors but we used the figures I had announced at Tendere,” Mr Macharia said. The officer was testifying in an election petition jointly filed by parliamentary losers Simon Ogari and Zephaniah Nyang’wara who say that the election was marred by bribery and massive rigging by Mr Joel Onyancha.
Mr Macharia also said that while scrutinising form 16A in Nairobi, he found that most of them were not signed by presiding officers or the agents. A scrutiny of ballot boxes found that eight were empty while a number had their seals tampered with.
Mr Katwa Kigen, appearing for the petitioners, asked Mr Macharia to explain the broken seals. “I am equally surprised because I left the boxes intact at Tendere,” he replied. The officer was asked to produce a list of how he distributed ballot boxes to centres.
