NAIROBI, Kenya – The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has restored access to its voter verification portal following a public outcry over an unexplained outage that left millions of Kenyans unable to confirm their registration details.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the commission said the system was temporarily offline for maintenance and infrastructure migration aimed at improving performance and strengthening data security.
“We wish to assure all Kenyans that the registration details of the 22,120,458 registered voters, as recorded during the 2022 General Election, remain intact and secure,” the IEBC said.
The outage had rendered both the web-based verification portal and the SMS platform — where voters send their ID or passport number along with their year of birth to 70000 — inaccessible for several days.
The blackout triggered widespread anxiety, particularly amid growing political activity in the run-up to the 2027 General Election.
While the commission has now confirmed that the platform is fully operational, it has come under fire for its handling of the disruption.
Critics pointed to a lack of timely and detailed communication, with the IEBC failing to disclose when the outage began, how long it would last, or the exact nature of the upgrades being carried out.
The commission’s initial announcement during the downtime offered no concrete timeline, simply stating that it would “promptly communicate once the system is fully operational and ready for verification of voter details.”
In a country where electoral processes are often marred by controversy and mistrust, the unexplained unavailability of such a critical tool has raised new questions about the IEBC’s transparency and readiness to manage the 2027 polls.
Observers and civil society groups are now calling on the commission to adopt clearer communication protocols and greater openness when handling sensitive public infrastructure.
“The voter verification tool is not just a digital platform — it’s a pillar of public trust in the electoral process,” one observer noted.
Kenya currently has more than 22 million registered voters, and with political stakes rising, pressure is mounting on the IEBC to ensure institutional reliability and restore voter confidence.
