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{
    "id": 692180,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/692180/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 131,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Wetangula",
    "speaker_title": "The Senate Minority Leader",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 210,
        "legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
        "slug": "moses-wetangula"
    },
    "content": " Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, it is obvious that the distinguished Senator for Nyeri was not listening and he was not even ready to prosecute a point of order because the reason he stood up to say “point of order” is because the nominated Senator sitting ahead of him looked at him suggestively. He then stood up and said; “point of order”. What I was talking about is the future. Yesterday, I said how honourable you are and I cannot change my opinion. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, Clause 6 of the Bill creates an offence by members of staff of the commission during the electoral process. Such offences include allowing people who pretend not to know how to read and write to be assisted. Although we are passing this Bill as it is, it would have been done better. It is also an offence for clerks to deliberatively destroy, deface or reject ballot papers. This is very important and this is what you saw during last elections. At Bomas of Kenya, the electoral commission created what they called “the ninth candidate” and this were the spoilt ballots. At the time they maliciously and criminally disabled the electronic transmission system to go to manual so that they could cheat, the spoilt ballots had reached over 600,000 even before half the ballots were counted. If electoral officers have been bribed, intimidated or both and are determined to rig out a candidate, all they will do is to deliberately mark in two boxes for anybody voting for Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale of Kakamega. They will mark for him and somebody else and that becomes a spoilt vote. At the end of the day, the Senator for Kakamega would have garnered or ought to have garnered 500 votes, which is the maximum you can get in a station. Out of those 500, he will end up with 100 acceptable ballots and 400 spoilt ballots. Even at the level of the law of probability, it is unlikely that 400 out of 500 people can cast their votes wrongly. This is what we are trying to cure and the officers of the IEBC found doing this will again be dealt with firmly and harshly. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, there are also situations where electoral officers maliciously exclude people from voting. In the countryside, many of our voters are either semi-educated or uneducated. They go into a polling room and may find some harsh-looking fellow with half- moon glasses looking at them and telling them; “get out of here!” That could make someone to The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate."
}