How IEBC Wants Media Houses to Align Presidential Tallies in 2027 General Election

The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has urged media organisations to adopt a coordinated approach to reporting presidential election results, aiming to boost public confidence in Kenya's electoral process. 

During a consultative roundtable held on Wednesday, 6 August, IEBC Chief Executive Officer Marjan Hussein Marjan stressed the importance of a unified results transmission system to reduce confusion and potential unrest. Marjan highlights the risks associated with the current practice, where multiple media houses independently tally results from the IEBC’s public portal, noting that discrepancies could undermine public trust. 

He proposes a shared signal from the commission’s central results hub, encouraging media outlets to explore collaborative mechanisms for synchronised reporting. IEBC's portal provides scanned copies of Form 34A and Form 34B, containing polling station and constituency-level results, respectively. 

Media houses typically deploy teams to manually extract and input this data, initiating parallel tallies that, while sourced from official documents, often diverge due to differences in processing methods, staffing levels, and sequencing strategies. In the 2022 General Election, varying figures across media platforms prompted public anxiety about the integrity of the results, despite the ultimate reconciliation of these discrepancies. 

The absence of a joint media tally underlined the challenges of fragmented reporting. Marjan's remarks signal a potential shift towards greater collaboration between the IEBC and media organisations. He invites media organisations to submit proposals on how to achieve consistency without compromising editorial independence, stopping short of detailing the operational framework for such a system.