Kenya's final kick-off of mass voter registration targets 6 mln voters

Kenya's final kick-off of mass voter registration will target six million new voters, the electoral body said on Sunday.

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) CEO Ezra Chiloba told a media briefing in Nairobi that as of December 2016, over 15.9 million Kenyans had been registered subject to verification and certification by IEBC.

"The second and last round of mass voter registration kicks off on Monday and will target between four million and six million new voters," Chiloba said.

The IEBC's 30-day countrywide mass voter registration drive runs from Jan 16 to Feb 14.

This will be the last registration campaign before the general elections slated for Aug 8.

Chiloba said the constitution gives every Kenyan, the right to participate in the political process.

"Registering to vote is one way through which this right may be realized and that is why the IEBC is availing another opportunity for eligible Kenyans to register to vote in the upcoming general election," he added.

Before the last general election in 2013, 14.4 million Kenyan enrolled as voters.

Data from the National Registration Bureau indicates that by November 2016, over nine million Kenyans had been issued with national identification cards but remained unregistered as voters.

The mass voter registration exercise is targeting persons who have never been registered as voters at any time between 2012 and 2016 as well as persons who have recently attained the voting age and acquired a national identity card.

The electoral body said that registration will be done by capturing bio-metric and alpha numeric data of the applicants.

The bio-metric enrollment will involve the capturing of the fingerprints.

The CEO said that in total, there shall be 24,613 registration centers while 7,793 bio-metric voter registration kits will be deployed countrywide.

The registration exercise will be conducted using over 21,421 staff for the 30-day exercise. Endit