The 2022 Supreme Court Petition: What the Judges Said and Why It Matters

On September 5, 2022, Chief Justice Martha Koome read out a verdict that would seal Kenya's political direction for five years: the Supreme Court unanimously upheld William Ruto's election as the fifth president of Kenya. But the 78-page judgment and its accompanying detailed opinions revealed far more than a simple win-lose outcome. They laid bare the strengths, weaknesses, and grey areas of Kenya's electoral system.

The Petition: Nine Grounds of Challenge

Raila Odinga and Martha Karua filed their petition on August 22, 2022 — exactly seven days after the results declaration, as required by the Constitution. Their challenge rested on nine key grounds:

• Irregularities in technology: Alleged hacking of IEBC servers and manipulation of results transmission
• Discrepancies in Form 34As: Differences between constituency-level and national-level tallies
• The Cherera Four: The four dissenting commissioners' claim that verification was incomplete
• Voter register integrity: Allegations of dead voters and duplicates in the register
• Mathematical impossibility: Claims that turnout figures in some constituencies exceeded 100%
• Disenfranchisement: Voters turned away due to KIEMS failures
• Undue influence: Government interference in the election process
• Violence and intimidation: Incidents that allegedly affected voting in specific areas
• Non-compliance with electoral law: Procedural violations by IEBC

What the Judges Said

The Court's analysis was methodical and, at times, devastating to both sides. Key findings:

On technology: The Court found that the IEBC's technology system 'substantially met the standard of integrity.' The petitioners' claim of server hacking was rejected due to insufficient evidence. However, the Court noted that IEBC failed to provide access to its servers for independent scrutiny — a troubling gap that the Court chose not to treat as fatal to the election.

On the Cherera Four: The Court held that the four dissenting commissioners' actions were 'regrettable and unlawful.' Their parallel press conference undermined public confidence but did not invalidate the election itself. The Court noted that under the IEBC Act, the chairman has the legal authority to declare results, and the commissioners' disagreement should have been raised through proper internal channels.

On mathematical discrepancies: The Court found that differences between polling station tallies and the national declaration were within acceptable margins of rounding error. The total discrepancy across all contested forms amounted to fewer than 500 votes — insignificant against a 233,211-vote margin.

On voter turnout: Claims of over-100% turnout were debunked. The Court found that these calculations had used 2017 voter register figures rather than the updated 2022 register, which showed higher registration in the contested areas.

The Standard of Proof Problem

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the judgment was the Court's discussion of evidentiary standards. In Kenyan election law, the petitioner must prove irregularities to a 'beyond reasonable doubt' standard for criminal allegations and 'on a balance of probabilities' for other claims.

The Court found that Raila's team relied heavily on:

• Statistical analyses that were theoretical rather than evidence-based
• Expert witnesses whose conclusions were based on assumptions rather than verified data
• Affidavits from party agents that were generic and lacked specific details

This evidentiary gap was the petition's ultimate undoing. As Justice Smokin Wanjala (who had dissented in the 2017 petition) noted: 'You cannot invite this Court to nullify the will of the people on the basis of what might have happened.'

Comparison with 2017

The contrast with the 2017 Supreme Court petition — where the Court nullified Uhuru Kenyatta's victory — was stark:

• 2017: IEBC's technology system completely collapsed — no electronic transmission for hours, servers showed evidence of external access. The Court found these failures 'irreducible minimums' that couldn't be overlooked.
• 2022: Technology substantially functioned. While imperfect, the system transmitted 97% of forms electronically, and physical forms corroborated the electronic results.

The lesson: Kenya's election technology had improved enough to survive judicial scrutiny, but not enough to prevent a petition altogether.

Why It Still Matters

The 2022 judgment set several precedents that will shape future elections:

• Commissioner dissent is not grounds for nullification — internal IEBC disagreements must be resolved internally
• Statistical analysis alone cannot overturn an election — petitioners need hard evidence from specific polling stations
• Technology imperfections are tolerated if the overall result is consistent across verification methods
• The 14-day timeline is brutal — petitioners had just two weeks to gather evidence from 46,229 polling stations

For anyone involved in parallel vote tallying, the 2022 petition reinforces why independent, real-time data collection is essential. When a petition reaches the Supreme Court, granular polling station data — the kind that systems like Votrack collect — becomes the difference between speculation and evidence.

Build your own evidence base for 2027. Request a Votrack demo to see how parallel tallying works at the polling station level.