“Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 39 and Section 44, the Commission shall put in place a complementary mechanism for the identification of voters and transmission of election results that is simple, accurate, verifiable, secure, accountable and transparent to ensure that the Commission complies with the provisions of Article 38 of the Constitution.” [298] When called upon to explain why all the Forms 34A had not been scanned, transmitted and published on an online portal, in line with Article 39 of the Elections Act, the 1st respondent, through counsel, alluded to some form of complementary mechanism. However, the description of such a mechanism did not appear to us to meet the yardsticks of verifiability inbuilt in the Constitution and Section 44A of the Elections Act. [299] In their submissions, counsel for the respondents and the 2nd interested party urged us not to annul the election on the basis of minor inadvertent errors. We entirely agree. We have already categorically acknowledged the fact that no election is perfect. Even the law recognizes this reality. But we find it difficult to categorize these violations of the law as “minor inadvertent errors”. IEBC behaved as though the provisions of Sections 39, 44 and 44A did not exist. IEBC behaved as though the provisions of Article 88 (5) of the Constitution requiring it to “…exercise its powers and perform its functions in accordance with the Constitution and the national legislation” did not exist. IEBC failed to observe the mandatory provisions of Article 86 of the Constitution requiring it to conduct the elections in a simple, accurate, verifiable, secure, accountable Presidential  Petition  No.  1  of  2017                                                                                                                                                                                                            126  |  P a g e    

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