Omtatah Moves to Court to Abolish IEBC’s National Tallying Centre, Citing Unconstitutionality
Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah has filed a constitutional petition at the Milimani High Court seeking to have the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission’s (IEBC) National Tallying Centre declared unconstitutional.
He argues that the Constitution clearly stipulates that presidential election results should be counted at polling stations, collated, and declared at the constituency level by returning officers, whose results are meant to be final and transparent, without further verification at a national level.
Omtatah contends that Section 39 of the Elections Act and IEBC regulations unlawfully created the National Tallying Centre, which introduces an unnecessary, opaque, and potentially manipulable layer of verification that contradicts the constitutional provisions .
In his petition, Omtatah points out that the national tallying process, historically conducted at the Bomas of Kenya, has caused disputes in past elections (2013, 2017, and 2022), including public splits within the IEBC leadership during the 2022 elections, which highlighted distrust in the centralized tallying system.
He challenges the powers given to the IEBC Chairperson to declare presidential results before all constituency results are received, arguing this undermines the finality of the constituency results as required by the Constitution.
The petition also implicates Parliament and the Attorney General for enabling or failing to address the constitutional breaches involved in this process.
Should the High Court rule in Omtatah’s favor, the IEBC will be forced to abolish the National Tallying Centre, and presidential results will be deemed final once declared at the constituency level, with the IEBC Chairperson’s role reduced to aggregating these final results without further verification.
Omtatah views this move as essential to protecting the integrity and transparency of Kenya’s presidential elections ahead of the 2027 General Election.