IEBC Reignites the Servers Debate in What Could Jeopardize the Handshake

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Open the Servers!! This was the call made by NASA lawyers at the Supreme Court during the hearing of the highly contested Presidential elections back in 2017.

National Super Alliance (NASA) had sensationally claimed that it was denied access to the IEBC servers. NASA wanted access so that it could be able to validate the authenticity of the results that IEBC presented as the final results.

The IEBC has now come out to clear it’s name, over a year after the elections were contested. It what could be seen as a major blow to the NASA coalition, IEBC has claimed that NASA lied to Kenyans that its experts were denied access.

In its internal post-evaluation report, IEBC claims Nasa accessed the servers 34 times through one John Walubengo before the August 8, 2017 poll results were released.

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This was after making 54 attempts, 20 of them unsuccessful.

The commission says, on the other hand, Jubilee had 10 successful logins after 24 attempts.

This was through ex-Energy CS Davis Chirchir.

Nasa had claimed that Chirchir, a former IEBC official and a tech expert, hacked the IEBC servers and helped Jubilee to rig the polls.

The claims featured prominently in the presidential petition at the Supreme Court especially after the IEBC failed to open its servers as ordered by the judges.

In the new report, the IEBC says Collins Ndindi, an independent candidate, made 46 attempts to log into the servers but only six succeeded.

Japheth Kaluyu’s agent had three successful logins while UDP’s Ben Wafuko opened the database six times.

Thirdway Alliance’s Bildad Kagai got five successful logins, the report states

The IEBC has also dismissed claims that it defied the apex court. The commission says it granted parties access to the information system as ordered.

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But Nasa had argued that they were denied access within the 48 hours provided for by the court to verify claims of data manipulation. This was the bone of contention during the Supreme Court proceedings.

The IEBC, at the time, raised objections citing confidentiality in regard to the application for unrestricted access to the servers.

Nasa had sought to be provided with details of usernames, passwords, the location of servers, identity of password holders, IP addresses and the software.

The Supreme Court made fresh orders for read-only access to the information related to the servers, cognizant of the security concerns raised by IEBC.

“Upon receipt of the orders, the commission made efforts to expedite the orders as soon as it was practically possible,” the 265-page report reads in part.

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