Azimio IT expert says forms 34A uploaded on IEBC system were different from those at the polling stations
2 min readAzimio IT expert says forms 34A uploaded on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) portal were different from those at the polling stations
Forms 34A uploaded on the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) portal were different from those at the voting stations, according to George Njoroge, a cyber security specialist with the Azimio Coalition.
Njoroge is the Chief Executive Officer of the East African Data Handlers (Kenya) and was contracted by the Azimio coalition in the August elections.
On Tuesday, August 23, Njoroge questioned the design of the forms that the IEBC posted on its portal for the general public to access during an interview with Spice FM.
He claimed that since the images of the forms were taken using a phone, they should be in the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) format rather than the Portable Document Format (PDF) (PDF).
“Officials took pictures of the original forms at the polling station and which are usually in JPEG format, but forms on the IEBC portal was in PDF. At what point did it change?” Njoroge posed.
Azimio IT expert George Njoroge acknowledged that the format may have changed when the files were taken and uploaded on the IEBC system, but he insisted that this alteration had a negative impact on the document’s authenticity.
“The process of changing the file format will certainly change something. The challenge of the conversion is that in terms of forensic evidence, the new file cannot be said to be the original file,” Njoroge explained.
Njoroge noted that the forms lacked metadata, the DNA of the document.
Metadata includes the name of the document, the date and time it was created, the device in which it was created, and its original format.
The cyber security expert explained how the process of having forms pass through the IEBC system before being uploaded online allowed infiltration by hackers in South Africa’s maiden election in 1994.
“The public portal they had at the time was hacked and Nelson Mandela’s vote was changed. What was being pitched at the time was that the votes were being processed by the server yet the votes were being migrated.”
He opined that IEBC should have allowed all Kenyans to access the files sent to its server but it limited the access to particular users.
“What we should have is presentment in that what is received is what is being presented, and every different user will have different rights to do different things,” Njoroge noted.
Also read,
Jubilee explains why Azimio didn’t have agents in Mt Kenya Region
Azimio team says they stand a good chance at Supreme Court
Follow us
