A coalition led by former Chief Justice David Maraga wants Parliament to revisit how Kenyan election results are declared, and it plans to table a fresh amendment Bill in the National Assembly and the Senate ahead of the 2027 General Election.

The People’s Coalition on Electoral Reforms set out four proposed changes to the Elections Amendment Bill at a media briefing on Monday, October 26, 2026. The proposals remain at the drafting stage; none has been introduced in the House.

At the centre of the push is Section 39 of the Elections Act, which deals with the declaration and transmission of results. The coalition wants results announced at polling stations to be treated as final, subject to change only by an election court.

It also proposes that presidential results be tallied in an open public space in Nairobi rather than on centralised servers at a headquarters. Under the plan, the electoral commission’s chairperson and commissioners would display and aggregate figures from all 290 constituencies together with diaspora votes, using secure read-only systems, before declaring a winner.

Under the same proposals, the 290 constituency returning officers would count results locally. Those figures would be published on a public online portal, and declarations would be streamed on large screens at constituency tallying centres.

On turnout, the coalition wants electronic figures transmitted and posted to a public portal every hour throughout polling day. Currently, the electoral commission announces turnout at 6pm.

The coalition cites a Court of Appeal ruling in the Maina Kiai case, which held that presidential results declared at polling stations are final and can only be contested in court. It also points to a 2016 recommendation by the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee on IEBC that polling station results be final and presidential results transmitted electronically.

Maraga said the provisions previously found unconstitutional by the High Court, a finding affirmed on appeal in the Maina Kiai case, remain in the Elections Act. Parliament dropped the entire Section 39 amendment last week, and the National Assembly recently passed changes the coalition says do not resolve its transparency concerns.

Beyond the Bill, the coalition is pursuing five further reforms. It wants the national tallying centre for presidential results abolished, the voters’ register audited regularly to remove deceased voters, and election technology that meets constitutional requirements. It also seeks criminal liability for presiding and returning officers who break election laws, and a transparent recruitment process for election officials.

The coalition plans a multi-stakeholder conference within two weeks to explain the amendments, followed by civic education and public mobilisation across the country. Maraga urged Parliament to act urgently so the changes can apply before the next General Election.