Raila Odinga's Evidence Shows William Ruto Needed 441 More Votes to Meet 50+1 Threshold
TukoAug 23, 2022Read original
Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party presidential candidate Raila Odinga and his running mate Martha Karua filed their presidential petition They want scrutiny of the rejected and spoilt votes; they also want the spoilt votes to count toward the total votes cast Azimio said a declaration should have been made with the rejected votes included while computing whether a candidate achieved the 50% plus one vote thresholdAzimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party presidential candidate
Raila Odingahas suggested in his petition that, indeed, president-elect William Ruto got more votes than him in the 2022 General Election but did not meet the 50% plus one vote threshold needed for one to be declared
winner of a presidential vote.
ODM leader Raila Odinga in a past function.Photo: Raila Odinga.
In the petition filed at the Supreme Court seeking to nullify Ruto's win,
Railasaid Ruto had fallen short by at least 441 votes, adding that none of the four presidential candidates achieved the required mark of 50% +1.
One of the witnesses
in the Azimio petition, Edgar Otumba, arrived at the conclusion through scientific and verifiable calculations.
“Even based on the disparities in the fraudulently manipulated numbers of the voter turnout, the petitioners (Raila and Karua) state that the 9th respondent (Ruto) did not meet the constitutional threshold of 50% plus one of the valid votes cast,” the petition read.
Rejected votes was not includedAccording to the calculation, the 50% threshold should be 7,176,582.766 votes, with Ruto having declared the winner with 7,176,141 votes, creating a difference of 441.766 votes.
The calculations by Raila's legal team show that the ODM leader would have needed 233,652.766 more votes. Raila garnered 6,941,930 votes.
The computations in the petition give Ruto 48.372% instead of 48.85 % declared by
IEBC, while Ruto’s would be 49.997 % instead of the 50.4% announced by the poll body.
In arguing that Ruto never met the constitutional threshold, Raila and his running Mate Martha Karua allege that IEBC kept deleting and uploading different Forms 34A, 34B and 34C even after the declaration on August 15.
Raila and Karua also want the Supreme Court to give an order for the scrutiny of all rejected and spoilt votes.
They said a declaration should have been made with the rejected votes included while computing whether a candidate achieved the 50% plus one vote threshold.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that only valid votes should be used during the computation of the threshold during the then petition against the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto.
James Orengo confident Raila will win Supreme Court presidential petitionIn a separate story,
TUKO.co.kereported that Senior Counsel
James Orengoexpressed confidence of Azimio presidential candidate
Raila Odinga emerging victoriousin the Supreme Court petition.
Speaking after filing the presidential petition on Monday, August 22, Orengo said the Azimio team had a water-tight case.
According to Orengo, there is sufficient evidence to convince the Supreme Court to nullify William Ruto’s win.