Balancing the Scales of Electoral Justice more times. Is it all the votes cast in an election or only valid votes that are to be counted? The cannons of sound statutory interpretation demand that, when considering a particular provision, the entire statute and its objects should be born in mind.147 On the basis of this profoundly sound principle, considering that, besides “recount,” Rule 32 of the Election Petition Rules further talks of “the tallying of the votes” and “the examination of the tallies”, it is submitted that as Omollo JA held in in James Omingo Magara v. Manson Onyongo Nyamweya and 2 Others,148 the court is not bound by the returning officer’s determination on the validity or otherwise of the ballot papers. It has to re-examine them and reach its own decision on their validity after which only valid votes are counted. It follows therefore that a petition based solely on Rule 32 of the Election Petition Rules, in which the term “recount” is intrinsically linked to the phrases “the tallying of the votes” as well as “the examination of the tallies, “requires a de novo re-examination of the votes, exclusion of invalid ones from the computation, and tallying of votes for the purpose of determination of the winner of the election in question. Therefore, this is a full scrutiny, which is, however, limited to the examination of the ballot papers and Forms 34 and 35 in respect of the impugned election. With the settlement of the issues of “recount” and “the tallying of the votes” as well as “the examination of the tallies”, the next issue for determination is whether in such a petition, the petitioner needs to lay a basis for the plea. We have already cited the provisions of Section 83 of the Elections Act, which in a nutshell provide that not every infraction of the electoral law warrants voiding an election unless such infraction affects the result of the election in question; that scrutiny being a time consuming, laborious, arduous and costly exercise, it should not needlessly be undertaken; and that pleas for scrutiny should not be granted as a matter of course or on ambiguous pleadings intended to enable a petitioner to engage in a fishing expedition.149 Based on these principles, it is respectfully submitted that that parties should never be allowed to play lottery150 in matters of great national importance such as 147 See also Royal Media Services v. AG, Petition No. 346 of 2012 following Olum & Another v. AG of Uganda, [2002] EA 505. 148 [2014] 5KLR(EP) 292. 149 Omondi, J. in Philip Mukwe Wasike v James Lusweti Mukwe, Bungoma High Court Election Petition No. 5 of 2013; see Wendo, J. in Ledama ole Kina v Samuel Kuntai Tunai & 10 others, Nakuru High Court, Election Petition No. 3 of 2013. 150 Philip Osore Ogutu vs Michael Aringo & 2 Others, Busia High Court Election Petition No. 1 of 2013. 267