When I penned down my thoughts on 14th August 2022, I was a man on a mission.
Well, I thought I was not alone.
I had hoped we are many of us out there ensuring IEBC is giving us fair, transparent, and credible results.
Our goal as the citizens of this country was to ensure that process was executed to an agreeable degree of error, given we don’t have comparable resources to IEBC.
Sadly, I fail to understand why the educated fellow – people with degrees, leave alone masters or PHDs will throw insults at one another on a matter that is only about a calculator, pen, and paper. Nothing complex. Just additions.
Frankly, it is outrageous to argue about figures that are publicly available.
But with all squabbles I am observing, I don’t think anyone uttering a word took time to tally, either by themselves or by employing a team of data analysts.
With that in mind, let us have…
A Recap of My Tally
Having done the tallying myself, I can confidently say my margin of error was below 1%.
The final data came directly from the IEBC portal except for Tigania East.
Admittedly, I extrapolated my results from the data crunched by Citizen Digital and NTV Elections results portal.
You can see my comments in that article (2022 Presidential Results). All remarks or comments I made are also in the original tallying Excel Sheet here.
If you’ll like to confirm my claims, the original data I borrowed from these sources is still in the Excel sheet I used to tally.
As we received new form 34Bs on the IEBC portal, I replaced the extrapolated data. Well, except for Tigania East. That means I am 100% certain of the unverified form 34Bs from the 290 constituencies.
Among the 290, 4 constituencies had submitted their forms without the data section. For these, I used verified IEBC official data I obtained from the NTV Election Portal.
I had to confirm with several other media outlets to ensure the data was credible and error-free.
You can also see my comments on the same in the tallying excel sheet.
During my data replacement phase, I would notice either a small margin of error, and where there was a noticeable margin, the direction of the win in favor of the candidates did not change.
What I want to mean above is that; if the extrapolated values indicated Raila was winning, even with the update from form 34Bs, favored the candidate. That is the case with Ruto. The other two candidates, Wajakoya and Mwaure, had a small margin of change by their sheer popularity.
Again, you can confirm my observation by going through my Excel tallying sheet for your analysis.
We all know there was no way to attain 100% accuracy. Mainly because the uploaded form 34Bs were unverified while I had to borrow some data from 3rd party source.
As a result, there was a chance there could be a few changes in verification. But that change I did not expect to be above 5%.
Luckily, the above is not the case, as I will share it with you shortly.
Nevertheless, I would like to get a compiled list of the verified data to compare against mine.
It will be fun to see the areas they altered; and by how much.
It will also be a chance to investigate if there are discrepancies – chances of skewing the results in favor of the winner or against the losing candidate or trying to make the outcome look legit while it is not.
Comparison of the Final Verified Results Versus My Tally
The table below compares the final verified presidential tally and my tally results.
Stay put as analysis is coming in a bit.
My Tally
Percentage Results
IEBC Verified Total Results
IEBC Verified Percentage Results
Before I even continue with the above data analysis, I want to admit I will not go the statistics route. I think it is overkill to start talking about standard deviations, variances, or chi-squares, among other statical tools used to test for the impact of the differences.
Let’s leave that part to those in the field of statistics in academics.
Here all I want to do is a shallow comparison any Kenyan can see or observe effortlessly.
There might be a small degree of error in doing so, but it is easier to digest than to chew statistical jargon.
If you feel there is ignorance in doing so, I kindly invite you to help me break down the information in the statistical route.
With that aside, let’s now get with the analysis of that table.
The first two rows after headers represent my final tallying results. The preliminary results – the total votes each candidate got and a percentage of wins.
The 4th and the 5th row are the verified results announced by the IEBC chair Mr. Chebukati.
The 6th and 7th rows are the differences between the verified results against my tally.
The final row shows the totals from my tally, verified results, and the difference.
As you will notice, all candidates, except for Mr. Mwaure, their votes count increased. Hon. Raila got the lion’s share, followed by Dr. Ruto and Wajokoya.
However, as you will notice, the percentage difference for Hon. Raira and Dr. Ruto are insignificant.
Maybe you are wondering why.
It has to do with the base, the total value.
You see, for Hon. Raila, you are comparing it against 6,914,114 million, and for Dr. Ruto, 7,171,032. The difference is that movement to the verified results.
For Mr. Mware and Prof. Wajakoya, you are looking at a situation where a slight movement means a significant percentage change. Consequently, a 1,139 reduction for Mr. Mwaure results in a 3.44% change. Similarly, for Prof. Wajokoya, a 621 movement amounts to 1.01%.
Now, the overall difference is a movement of 33,407, 0.24%.
That is below the 1% degree of error I gave to my process on my final update.
Why Great Length Of Explanation
Many politicians will not want to follow this route.
They better see everything burn because such information and degree of truth scare their fable minds.
You will even hear someone argue against a fact to distort it with the instruments of law.
Damn, in a way, I dislike legal counsels because you will hear someone arguing against facts – trying to bend reality using educated sweet, yet confusing words.
I do not understand why we keep allowing such leaders to rule us.
We should not allow them anywhere near our motherland affairs, leave alone our fate. The fate of our children and grandchildren. Our future, current, and history.
These are people who spend billions training and let that workforce go.
They are the people who would prefer importing maize instead of subsidizing fertilizers for farmers.
They are people who will better invest billions in changing the constitution to foster their agendas instead of ensuring education is tenable to every Kenyan.
I can continue with how we’ve seen poor judgment calls in this country.
But here is my point blank.
If someone cannot justify their statement with facts, we better all Kenyans unanimously join hands in a single front against such a person, no matter their stature.
In a united front, let us shame them for their barbarian nature.
Let’s Unite as a Single Front Against Bad Leadership
Talking of a single front, I love my community.
I am proud to be a Kikuyu.
If all Kenyan tribes can take one lesson from the people of Mt. Kenya, it is only one thing.
We do not take orders.
Though we like loyalty and love our politicians, we make decisions based on what makes sense. Not based on a regional kingpin. We deal with facts.
Give us a profound manifesto that rings bells in our ears, and we’ll give you a chance.
Resonate with the community, and they will be at your disposal.
Above all, we love peace. It is good for the business environment.
If that does not mean anything to you, you better re-read it again; with an open mind. Then, follow our historical trail.
I understand many will disagree with me here.
My intention is not to take away your beliefs or convince you to believe in any direction you do not want to. Mine is to state facts.
I also love figures. They never distort perspectives till maliciously skewed. I’d rather bank on them than a word from a politician.
I don’t allow someone to decode stuff for me – not especially if I can effortlessly interpret by myself.
Agree or not, everyone is entitled to their school of thought.
Nevertheless, we saw what went down in this election tallying process.
If you are like me, you may be puzzling, how did we fail terribly with all our preparations?
Was it a shit show?
Where Have We Failed In The Process?
Technically, IEBC seems to have an oiled conveyor belt on the polling process – from casting ballots to almost the tallying process.
Every media outlet was showcasing its investment in the tallying process.
Many had staff on their tallying centers of various caliber of skills. I imagined they hired software engineers to ensure the relay of their polling data is of international standards.
All the touch screen monitors, pinching, and zooming of the equipment is a dream to many neighboring countries.
The idea that IEBC was hosting scans of form 34As and 34Bs to a public portal that everyone could access is also something that became sensational to the point that our brothers from Tanzania made a joke out of it.
It has, was, and is a tangible democracy.
But in a way, we have failed.
Is it in our Africanism way that we could not believe in our process, to fail?
I believe, NO.
A big oh No.
It is ignorance and, in a way, still in political bondage.
Our constitution gives us the right to tally alongside IEBC. The only requirement is that we do not declare the winner. That would make our tallies unverified till the IEBC chair verifies, in this case, Mr. Chebukati.
I truly do not understand why everyone reading from the same data source will get different results from each another.
Granted, the tallying may have been different at the beginning due to several factors, but at a certain level, it will have rhymed. The figures would have taken a foreseeable direction at a given point.
I understand there could be minor differences between different tallying stations. But the differences, as I illustrated with my tally, could not be significant enough above a 5% degree of error.
And if all other tallying stations would have a similar discrepancy, then we all conclude the problem is not the independent tallying stations but the IEBC.
All of us could be on the same side. Same side of truth. Same side, trying to stop false results.
We would all be discrediting the tally.
However, the moment I saw all the TV stations tallying process slowed to a halt, that is the moment we allowed the situation we are in now (again, Hon. Odinga has discredited the results)
When I saw some leaders make a scene in front of our national television, I saw the fruits of shutting down our tallying process.
When I saw media houses demonizing independent tallying centers without verifying their data, I saw where our media stations failed us.
By not relaying provisional results, we stole Kenyans’ voice and gave it to the politicians.
I still hold that our local media stations failed me as a Kenyan. They failed us. They failed to stop a rogue politician from making unverifiable claims, claims not backed by facts.
If our media stations cannot fight on behalf of the very citizens, they try to build a fan base from, what then is their role?
We believe that whatever they air to us is unbiased and credible.
Can we all still believe in them after allowing us, once again, to fall into the trap of politicians?
Look, if no one is saying the forms I used to tally my results were tampered with, why are they discrediting figures?
Collective Tallying Outcome
I have laid my opinion of what could have been one element of a fix to the current status of stalemate.
But are you asking yourself, what will have happened if our media stations’ final tally had an acceptable degree of error?
For example, an error similar to my final tally.
Keep holding that thought.
For now, I imagine here is what we could be facing if we all participated in the tallying process openly.
I do believe the silence hurt more than it has fixed.
Final Thoughts
The moment media stations stopped tallying, they paved political mayhem. Anarchy. Manipulation. Chaos.
They open a room for politicians to take Kenyans’ hostages.
They thought they were doing us good.
Instead, they played big brother without our permission.
What everyone needs to know is that Kenyans love their country.
Every Kenyan now, after seeing the events of 2007 and many other close to similar post-elections events, understands the pain, agony, and poverty aftermath causes.
No one wants to go there again.
Kenyans are intelligent. They understand the meaning of preliminary results and unverified. They know the results are subject to verification.
The problem is not with Kenyans. It is with the politicians.
When I started this article, I noted I thought there will be many like-minded, but it seems there are a few, if none.
I hope you can understand my point now.
Many looks upon their leaders for interpretations of the law.
If leadership is what I saw, you can see why it was wrong to stop the tallying process.
It has put Kenyans at the mercy of our rogue readers.
I rest my case.
What are your thoughts?
