11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. No credible evidence was presented to support the allegation that Forms 34A presented to agents diered from those uploaded to the Public Portal. The Report by the Registrar conrmed the authenticity of the original forms in the sampled polling stations. The adavit evidence presented by the petitioners, while containing sensational information, was not credible as the Registrar’s Report conrmed that all the Forms 34A attached to those adavits and purportedly given to them by agents at select polling stations were signicantly dierent from the originals, certied copies and those on the public portal. The purported adavit evidence was not only inadmissible but were also unacceptable. It had been established that none of the agents on whose behalf the forms were being presented swore any adavit; that there was nothing to show that they had instructed both Celestine Opiyo and Arnold Oginga (counsel for the petitioners) to act for them. Yet the two had gone ahead to depone on matters that were not within their knowledge. The Supreme Court could not countenance such conduct on the part of counsel who were ocers of the court. Adavits led in court had to deal only with facts which a deponent could prove of his own knowledge. As a general rule, counsel were not permitted to swear adavits on behalf of their clients in contentious matters because they ran the risk of unknowingly swearing to falsehoods and could also be liable to cross-examination to prove the matters deponed. Sections 113 and 114 of Penal Code provided that swearing to falsehoods was a criminal oence, and it was an oence to present misleading or fabricated evidence in any judicial proceedings. One of the most serious losses an advocate could ever suer was the loss of trust of judges for a long time. Such conduct amounted to interference with the proper administration of justice. The contents of the adavit of John Mark Githongo, which was alleged to contain forgeries, were dismissed for not meeting the evidential threshold. They contained no more than incredible and hearsay evidence. No admissible evidence was presented to prove the allegation that Forms 34A were fraudulently altered by a group situated in Karen under the direction of persons named in the adavit and video clip attached to it. His two adavits amounted to double hearsay, and incapable of being proved at each layer. In addition, no probative value was found on the allegation that Jose Carmago had accessed the RTS and interfered with the result. The KIEMS kit relating to Psongoywo Primary School which bore the same serial number with another was admitted by IEBC as an inadvertent manufacturer’s error. The two kits had other identifying features that were markedly dierent including the time stamps and polling code. Nothing turned on that anomaly. There was no dierence between Forms 34A uploaded on the IEBC Public Portal, those received at the National Tallying Centre, and those issued to the candidates’ agents at the polling stations. IEBC postponed elections for various seats during the general elections of August 9, 2022 due to a mixup of ballot papers. Section 55B of the Elections Act, 2011, provided for circumstances when elections could be postponed in a particular electoral unit including in cases of emergency. The 3rd respondent had the requisite power to postpone elections in the constituencies, counties and wards in question. Voter suppression was recognized as a political strategy which took many forms but whose practical eect was ultimately to reduce voting by deliberately discouraging or preventing targeted groups of people from exercising their right to vote and thereby inuencing the outcome of an election. It was against the letter and spirit of article 38 which guaranteed every citizen the right to make political choices based on universal surage. It had not been shown that, by postponing elections in the named electoral units, IEBC acted in bad faith or was inuenced by irrelevant factors and considerations. The postponement was occasioned by a genuine mistake, which could have been avoided had the members and sta of the IEBC been more diligent when they went to inspect the templates in Athens, Greece where the printing of ballot papers was undertaken. kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/240578/ 8

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