| dc.description.abstract | The recently concluded voter registration exercise in Kenya, in tandem with what has
become the norm in every electoral process in the country, was not without complaint.
Complaints ranged from delay in issuance of identification documents leading to
disenfranchisement of certain, mostly youthful, citizens, through the short period set
aside for the voter registration process, to "importation" of "outsiders" to register as
voters into other constituencies. These allegations bring to the fore a question of the
capacity of the forthcoming elections to be free and fair . It is now a truism that the
"freeness" and fairness of an election calls for a consideration of factors prior to, and
beyond, the ballot box ritual. This paper seeks to interrogate the commonly used criteria
to ascertain whether a particular election has been free and fair; the law regarding the
eligibility of a person to register as a voter in any constituency in Kenya, the prescribed
mechanisms of detecting "imported" voters in Kenya, practical challenges to detecting
"imported" voters and finally, whether, in light of the allegations of voter "importation"
the forthcoming General Elections stand a chance of passing the free and fair test. | en_US |
