instance, Justice Daniel Isokolo Musinga, President of the Court of Appeal in Kenya, mentioned disinformation as the main issue in the 2022 elections. Justice Musinga noted that judges experienced strong political pressure, fake allegations of bribery on social media, and the creation of fake accounts on X (formerly known as Twitter). The Kenyan case discussed below is a significant example of how courts dealt rapidly with a campaign on information integrity that made its way into the courtroom to underpin wider societal trust in the election results and likely help avert wider conflict. Willam Ruto was declared the winner of Kenya’s presidential election by a margin of less than 2 percent of the vote. Shortly before the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) officially announced the result, four IEBC commissioners held a press conference and called into question the credibility of the entire election. Based on the press conference, the losing candidates and other petitioners then filed numerous lawsuits challenging the results. The cases claimed that “irregularities” and “interference,” including technology failures and “opaque” verification processes, caused an inaccurate vote count, and called for cancellation of the election. 47 The Supreme Court joined these petitions into a single case, Presidential Election Petition E005, E001, E002, E003, E004, E007 & E008 of 2022 (Consolidated). In its judgment, the Court systematically dismissed the petitions, citing lack of evidence for the various claims and noting in particular that illegalities and irregularities in the vote count must be of such magnitude as to affect the final result of the presidential election: “[T]he four Commissioners had not placed before the Court, any information or document showing that the elections were either compromised or that the result would have substantially differed from that declared by the chairperson of IEBC.” 48 Given petitioners’ reliance on the public declarations of the four commissioners for their Live-Streaming Judgments in Nigeria The detailed judgment by the Supreme Court of Kenya echoes a transparent delivery of a judgment by election judges in Nigeria. A major disinformation campaign impacted the Nigerian elections early in 2023 and was followed by attacks on the integrity of judges on the Election Petition Tribunal. The election judges dismissed allegations of tampering with technology in the results transmission process via an 11-hour, livestreamed reading of their ruling. cases, the Court’s observation represented an insurmountable obstacle for the petitions. Issuing a point-by-point refutation of the petitioners’ arguments built a case for strong, well-reasoned judgments dismantling the narratives that fueled the post-election results process (see text box for similar case in Nigeria 49). Significantly, the Court delivered its judgment less than one month after the results of the election, and within the legal deadline of 14 days from the filing. This swift resolution of the dispute was a crucial element in countering the attacks on the integrity of the elections and bolstering citizens’ trust in the democratic process – but it required a well-resourced court to meet the short deadline. In its judgment, the Court specifically cited the “inappropriate and insulting language” that counsel and parties used against the Court and that “… insults or vitriolic attacks” Supreme Court of Kenya, September 5, 2022, Presidential Election Petition E005, E001, E002, E003, E004, E007 & E008 of 2022 (Consolidated) [2022] KESC 54 (KLR) (Ken.) 48 Id. at para. 25. 49 Court of Appeal, September 6, 2023, Appeal No. CA/PEPC/03/2023; CA/PEPC/04/2023; CA/PEPC/05/2023 47 14

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