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"speaker_name": "Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale",
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"content": "Thank you, Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir. I strongly support this Bill, but with little tweaks here and there. However, I am surprised that Sen. Cherarkey and Sen. Osotsi, Members of this House whom I believe are seasoned and give serious thought to legislation, are complaining that our elections are too expensive. If you think democracy is expensive, please go and try dictatorship or military rule. You will know the difference. I say this with maximum respect because I know that for Cherarkey, when the country went burst in 2007 because of flaws in the electoral process, he was probably in kindergarten. He, therefore, has no idea how your father, who was a senior Member of the House, fought hard to keep the country together. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, I would like to say that our process that looks expensive is because we are way ahead of many other countries in the world. They will play catch up and start doing what we are doing today. I, therefore, want to thank the members of NADCO for this particular process that informed this Bill. I strongly believe that election laws should be reviewed regularly as a practice at the end of every electoral cycle because there are lessons that we learn from every election, that invite an opportunity for us to make the process better. We should, therefore, not get tired of reviewing our election laws over and over again. It is agreed that an election starts and must end at a polling station. This was not only the intention of the Constitution, but it was also confirmed by the decision of the High Court, which has guided many petitions in this country, especially those of presidential elections. I, therefore, want to add my voice to this law that is now making it clearer that elections will start and end at a polling station. Colleagues, let me tell you about the figure 500. If you are to take a count of 1 up to 500 and you are counting pieces of paper, 1, 2, 3, up to 500, it cannot take an hour. It is within that one hour that you can sort out the votes. For example, it can be said that Sen. Abdul got this and his opponent got this. After sorting, you can then count 1 to 500 and get the result in a polling station. From that, you can know what the Senator for Wajir County got vis-à-vis his opponent. We should defeat the corruption that accompanies the voting process that leads to delay. In a place like Kisumu, the distinguished professor had to wait for three days before he could know his fate. I will tell you what annoys me based on my own experience. We have counting and tallying centre, and I usually know the results because I get feedback from my counting agents in every polling station. After knowing the results by around midnight, I am forced to stay for three days for the Returning Officer to announce what I The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only.A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and Audio Services,Senate."
}