MPs Vote to End IEBC Livestreaming of Election Results Ahead of 2027

The National Assembly has passed the Elections Amendment Bill 2024, removing the legal requirement for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to livestream polling station results ahead of the 2027 General Election.

The move has already stirred debate over how Kenyans will follow the 2027 general elections tallying.

Lawmakers passed the Elections Amendment Bill 2024 on Thursday, 22 October, after it had already cleared the Senate the previous year.

The bill's passage raises fresh questions over transparency measures that Kenyans have grown accustomed to in recent election cycles.

At the heart of the amendment is Clause 22, which deletes Section 39 of the Elections Act in its entirety.

That section previously governed how election results were determined, transmitted and declared.

Under the new framework, the IEBC will still be legally required to determine, declare and publish results immediately once polling closes, with figures announced at individual polling stations treated as final.

What changes is the commission's obligation to livestream those results as they are announced.

In practical terms, this means Kenyans could lose direct access to a real-time IEBC results feed, the kind many have relied on to follow election outcomes as they unfold.

Independent broadcasting by media houses and election observers would, however, remain unaffected.

Deputy Speaker Gladys Boss Shollei, who also serves as Uasin Gishu Women Representative, brushed aside concerns that scrapping the livestreaming requirement would weaken electoral transparency.

She argued that Kenya's existing legal framework already offers adequate safeguards should disputes arise.

"If there is a query, the ballot box will be brought back. And that's why last time the Supreme Court, when they decided they want to recount the votes, the one from Tiaty was brought to the Supreme Court, the one from, it was Mombasa, Jicho Pevu's constituency, and so on. So that is how it's done. So there is nothing wrong," Shollei said.

A separate amendment, tabled by Suba South MP Caroli Omondi, had sought to introduce new provisions governing how presidential election results are tallied, verified and communicated.

That proposal failed to survive the vote.

Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wah led opposition to the amendment, cautioning against making substantive changes to electoral processes so close to an election cycle.

"If we start tinkering with electoral laws, substantive issues of touching on our electoral processes, and also in the transmission of results and all those other things, shenanigans around electoral period, the elections, we stand accused," Ichung'wah said.

The decision marks a notable U-turn from Parliament's own stance in 2022, when the National Assembly's justice committee rejected a similar proposal from the IEBC to end results livestreaming.

At the time, former Speaker Justin Muturi had described live results broadcasting as a standard feature of democratic elections, a position now effectively reversed by this latest amendment.