High Court Upholds IEBC National Tallying Powers

The High Court has dismissed a constitutional petition challenging the national verification of presidential election results, ruling that the final declaration made at the national tallying centre remains binding.

Delivering the judgment on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, the court upheld the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s (IEBC) constitutional mandate to verify constituency tally forms before declaring a presidential winner. The judges further affirmed that in cases where discrepancies emerge between electronic transmissions and physical documentation, the vote counts recorded on physical forms at the polling station level strictly prevail.

The suit was instituted by Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah, who sought to dismantle national-level re-tallying on the grounds that it creates an unlawful second layer of verification. Omtatah argued that the law grants the IEBC powers unintended by the Constitution by allowing the establishment of a central tallying hub at the Bomas of Kenya. He warned that adding intermediate verification stages at the national level exposes election results to human tampering and delays, urging the bench to rule that the IEBC Chairperson should solely collate the final tallies transmitted directly from the 290 constituencies.

The court’s decision comes amid broader public scrutiny surrounding Kenya’s electoral architecture. Former Chief Justice David Maraga recently called for the complete dismantling of the central tallying facility at Bomas, contending that presidential vote counts ought to be finalized strictly at the constituency level. Similarly, civil society leaders under the People’s Coalition on Electoral Reforms have advocated for independent constituency servers to ensure real-time public access.

However, the High Court maintained that centralized verification serves as an essential administrative safeguard to confirm arithmetic accuracy before declaring a final presidential winner.