KIEMS Kits Fail To Recognize Some Elderly Voters’ Fingerprints In Garissa

GARISSA, Kenya, Aug, 9 – A section of political leaders in Garissa County are calling on the IEBC to urgently resolve technicalities in which the Kiems kit failed to recognize the fingerprints of the elderly voters.

Speaking after casting his vote at Garissa library polling station, Township MP Aden Duale, who is defending his seat for the fourth time, said that although there are challenges in identifying the elderly, there is no need for alarm because there are complementary mechanisms to resolve.

“There are a number of people whose thumbs are not captured in the Kiems kit but I want to urge the Polling officers to use other means of identifying the voters. S wipe their ID cards so that each and every voter not only in Garissa but in the whole country get to vote for their leaders and choose the next government,” Duale said.

“I have found between 8 and 10 elderly people in almost every polling station with this issue but there is a complementary system so everyone should be patient and wait for the IEBC to sort out the problem,” he added.

Garissa senator Abdul Haji urged the IEBC officials to quickly work on ways to serve the elders so that they can go back to their homes.

“We have been told that though there are challenges with the thumbs, it is still working if they retry a few times. As leaders, we are asking our elders to be as patient as IEBC on the issue,” Haji said.

Elderly voters had decried the failure of IEBC Kiems kit to recognize their fingerprints before they could be allowed to vote.

Dubat Amey, an elder who is also disabled said that it is unfortunate that such people who have travelled from different areas would miss out in the voting exercise over fingerprints due to their older age.

“We have been told that if our names are not in the electronic register, we can still use the manual voter register but our fingerprints must be recognized first. We want the IEBC technical teams to handle these problems so that we can be allowed to vote,” Amey said.

“I have seen a few other elderly people like me whose fingerprints are having issues because of our age. I hope this issue will be solved because so that no one is denied a chance to vote the polling stations will be closed at 5 pm,” he added.

Zara Mohamed, whose thumbprint was not also recognized, said that if the issue is not quickly addressed, hundreds of the elderly voters in the county will not be able to vote.

“I was wondering why the elderly men and women were leaving the queue only to realize that they have been told to wait so that the issue on Kiems fingerprints can be sorted out. We cannot just stay here because of our age, most of us were only coming to vote and go back home,” Zara said.