NAIROBI, Kenya – Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has clarified that only those who skipped the 2012 transition are expected to register afresh.
If you registered or verified your details during the 2012 mass registration exercise, or at any point leading up to the 2013, 2017, or 2022 General Elections, you are already in the system. You do not need to register again.
The new registration is for those who were absent for biometric enrollment starting in 2012 as their details are not in the current electronic database.
These Kenyans are asked register as new voters again since those details are ‘missing’ from the digital roll.
“We have not asked ALL OLD VOTERS PRE-2012 to register a fresh. Just those few who might have missed to register in 2012 and who, subsequently, have never registered under the Biometric system to date,” IEBC stated.
2012 was a turning point for Kenya’s democratic process following the adoption of the 2010 Constitution and the redrawing of constituency boundaries, when the IEBC scrapped the old manual Register of Voters (ROV).
In its place, a new biometric system was established. This required every eligible Kenyan to show up in person to have their fingerprints and facial features captured.
As of the 2022 General Election, the IEBC maintains a robust, audited register of 22,120,458 voters. This list is entirely biometric.
The Commission is not asking every “old” voter to start over. The call to register afresh only applies to those few who fell through the cracks during the 2012 transition and have remained unregistered under the biometric system ever since.
Basically, if you’ve voted in any election in the last decade, you’re all set. If you haven’t been to a polling station since before 2012, it’s time to head to your local IEBC office to get your biometrics captured.
