167 prescribed form which was an essential requirement in the deleted subsection. This was an essential safeguard that guaranteed verifiability, transparency and accountability of the election results transmitted from polling centres to the constituency and national tallying centres. This is made even more troubling by the fact that results will also be physically delivered to the constituency and national tallying centres but in no particular prescribed form. This not only opens the results to possible adulteration and manipulation but also mischief. The amendment obviously reverses the gains the country had made in electoral reforms including results transmitted in a particular form. 5.18.4.4 Because the proposed amendment sought to elevate manual result transmission over the electronic one, it undermined verifiability of results, which was the spirit of Articles 81 and 86 of the Constitution, which would revert the country to the pre-2010 era. As the Court held at para 85: …a law allowing election officials once again to troop to the Constituency and national tallying centres with hard copies of election results in no particular forms, is to take several steps backward from the progress the country had made to guarantee free, fair and transparent elections in conformity with the Constitution. This amendment is clearly against the spirit of Articles 10, 81 and 86 of the Constitution and cannot pass the constitutionality test of validity. 5.18.4.5 The Court also impugned section 39(1D) and (E) of the Elections Act, with the former requiring the tallying, verification and declaration of results at the polling station and the latter stating that where there was a discrepancy between the electronic and manual results, the IEBC would determine which results would prevail. The Court took issue with the creation of a situation where there was a potential for conflict between manual and electronically transmitted results, yet the two sets of results were to flow from the same process of tallying, verification and declaration. At para 91, the Court asserted: The Constitution is very clear on the accuracy, verifiability and reliability of elections. Accuracy guarantees democratic elections as the foundation of a democratic state. Section 39(1D) as read with 39(1)(F) are vague and ambiguous on which results are the accurate record of the election as tallied verified and announced by the presiding officers since there can be only one result from an election. In this regard, these subsections downgrade the significance of accuracy and transparency of an election thus open room for speculation and manipulation of election results. The Commission has the enviable role of not only guaranteeing the accuracy of elections and results therefrom, but also ensuring that they are in conformity with constitutional principles in Articles 10, 81 and 86. There should never be room again in our election laws for the possibility of manipulating elections or results as this would undermine free and fair elections which are the hallmark of a democratic society. I therefore find fault with sections 39 (1D) and 39(1E) of the Act. 5.18.4.6 The High Court also declared unconstitutional sections 39(1F) and (G). The former provided that the failure by the Presiding Officer to electronically transmit results would not invalidate the results as declared by the Presiding Officer or Returning Officer, while the latter stated that results contained on the IEBC public portal were ‘for public information only’ and could not be the basis for declaration of results by the Commission. Because these provisions flew in the face of the heavy investment made in elections technology and the clear intention of the legislature that results from the primary source matter, and absolved IEBC officers who failed to transmit results without justification, they were held inconsistent with constitutional principles. BENCH BOOK ON ELECTORAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION