Resolving Disputes from the 2013 Elections in Kenya and the Emerging Jurisprudence For the respondents in that petition, it was contended that unlike the former constitution, which restricted the computation for the determination of the threshold for the election of the President to “valid votes”, the current Constitution requires “all the votes cast” to be taken into consideration. In their view, “all the votes cast” meant all ballot papers cast into the ballot boxes including those that are subsequently determined as rejected votes. On that contention, they urged that even rejected votes should be taken into consideration in that computation. On a purposive interpretation of Article 138 of the Constitution, the Elections Act and the Election Regulations and relying on the said Seychellois decision, the Supreme Court excluded the rejected votes from the computation and declared Mr. Uhuru Kenyatta as the duly elected President of the Republic of Kenya. While taking or not taking into consideration the rejected votes was the issue in the Raila Odinga case, in the American case of Bush v. Gore,68 the central issue was the validity of about 9000 votes, cast in some counties in the state of Florida. Because of some voters’ failure to clear hanging chad and chips from the punch card ballots, the counting machines recorded some ballots as having no vote for any presidential candidate (under vote) and some as having a vote for more than one candidate (over vote).69 Holding the view that “[t] o invalidate a ballot which clearly reflects the voter’s intent, simply because a machine cannot read it, would subordinate substance to form and promote the means at the expense of the end,”70 the Florida Supreme Court ordered a manual recount. The US Supreme Court overturned that decision on the ground that manual recounts “with the use of differing sub-standard for determination the voter intent in different counties,”71 would foul the equal protection rule in the Fourth Amendment of the American Constitution and lead to unequal treatment of voters. The scrutiny at polling stations at the close of the poll is an important feature in other jurisdictions as well. At the close of polling, the above procedural steps are more or less followed in other jurisdictions such as Canada,72 68 531 U.S. 98 (2000). 69 Steve Bickerstaff, Counts Recounts, and Election Contests: Lessons from the Florida Presidential Election, 29 Florida State University Law Reviews 425 2001-2002, 437. Also available at, http://heinonline.org, at 23 October 2015. 70 Steve Bickerstaff, Counts Recounts, and Election Contests: Lessons from the Florida Presidential Election, 29 Florida State University Law Review 425 2001-2002, 444. Also available at, http://heinonline.org, at 23 October 2015. 71 Steve Bickerstaff, Counts Recounts, and Election Contests: Lessons from the Florida Presidential Election, 29 Florida State University Law Review 425 2001-2002, 448. Also available at, http://heinonline.org, at 23 October 2015. 72 Elections Act, 2000, s. 283. 254