Destiny in your hand: Please register as a Voter!!

The voter registration exercise before the 2013 Kenyan General Election is scheduled to commence on 1^st November 2012 strictly for a period of 30 days as the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) are working on very tight timelines as was announced recently by its chairman.

For those who have never registered as voters, the time is around the corner! All you require to register, if the same old rules to identify you apply, is your Kenyan National ID Card or Kenyan Passport. The elections beckon and you do not want to be disenfranchised!  Having voted severally in past elections spanning over 20 years, while some of the candidates that I have voted for in prior elections sometimes win, the reverse is also true. They sometimes lose!

Strictly speaking it is not about whether your candidate wins or loses, whether he is a racehorse or a donkey, it is about the thrill of knowing that you had a choice in the destiny of your country and you took it. Never mind the often used excuse that one person’s vote won’t change a thing and that is why you will not bother to obtain that all important piece of plastic. What if two months to the election date your mother, father, brother, sister, best friend or uncle decided to declare his interest in a seat somewhere and then they went on to lose by one vote because you and your sister who would have voted for them did not vote because you did not have a voters card? That is when the realization of how important that piece of plastic would dawn on you, when the fight has been lost.

Other Kenyans in the diaspora and beyond are fighting for the right to vote from wherever they are so no excuses please! My assumption here is that since the current constitution allows them to vote from wherever they are, the IEBC will need to devise mechanisms to make it possible for diaspora Kenyans to vote. In some countries (not Kenya) it is a punishable offence for a qualifying person not to register as a voter. If I had my way heavy punishment for qualifying voters who do not bother to register would be the case in Kenya too.

The voting exercise is not one for the faint hearted. It is not a fun exercise. It is not a walk in the park or a lazy day lounging at the beach. It is a tough job requiring a tough spirit! It requires one to wake up at the crack of dawn on voting day and head to the polling station where if you are unlucky you will find many like minded souls like yourself who woke up even earlier than you and now the line snakes a half a kilometer around the block and back. It might be a hot day, it might be a rainy day but either way you have to line up for at least 3 hours as the line makes it tortuous snails pace to the polling clerks and polling booths when they open at 8.00 am OR you may be lucky and be in and out in 10 minutes!

Since this is the first time that we will be voting for at least 6 different candidates – President, senator, governor, member of parliament, councilor and women’s representative - in the same election using the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits that have caused so many challenges to the IEBC recently I am not sure if this will speed up the actual voting process or delay it further, it would be wise to carry a newspaper or a book to read as you while away the hours on election day.

As you approach the polling clerks and booths, the excitement is heightened and then the question that brought you here comes thick and fast. Who do I vote for? You suddenly realize that you have no idea of the senator, MP or the civic candidate or the women’s representative for your constituency who are the lowest in the pecking order (not necessarily in that order). As in the past, I am sure that no campaigning is allowed on the voting day and more specifically within a polling station so no one can answer this question lest they be expelled from the station.

If history is anything to go by, most people vote for the presidential candidate that they want irrespective of party, the MP and finally the councilor allied to the party whose MP they chose. This voting along party lines will almost certainly happen for the gubernatorial, senator and women’s representative seats also.  

This is not necessarily the right thing to do, but again there is no wrong way of voting short of spoiling your ballot paper. Once a ballot paper is marked, there is no turning back, so erasing and indicating another candidate will automatically disqualify that ballot paper from being counted. You do not get a second ballot paper either since these are accountable documents and hence they reason they are included in the final vote tally as spoiled ballots. You then drop your ballot paper into the relevant ballot box (likely scenario six in the next election).  If past practice is anything to go by they will then mark your pinky finger with indelible ink in conclusion of the exercise thus giving you bragging rights for the next two days or until the indelible ink washes off your pinky!

Voting being by secret ballot means that it will be you, the ballot paper, the ballot box and your God who will know how you cast your vote….so do so wisely!!

But first plan to register as a voter before the end of the registration period of 30^th November……and oh yeah tell your sons, daughters, sisters and brothers to register to! The IEBC is also conducting voter education on how to go about the whole exercise, what it will entail and your rights, responsibilities and duties as a voter etc so listen keenly and closely to avoid spoiling your ballot.

I know that I will be at the head of the queue on the opening day of voter registration to avoid the last minute rush that most of us are accustomed to. Will you join me?