By The Weekly Vision Reporter
President William Ruto has reignited debate over voter registration in Western Kenya after urging residents to register as voters during a public address on 15 July. The President said that about 1.5 million people in the region possess Kenyan national identity cards but have not registered as voters.
“You must register to vote. About 1.5 million people in Western Kenya have IDs but do not have voter cards. How will playing Isikuti drums help us if you do not even have a vote?” he said.
Although the remarks were framed as a call for greater civic participation, they come against the backdrop of a months-long dispute over the integrity of voter registration in Trans Nzoia County, where Governor George Natembeya has alleged that non-Kenyans are being registered as voters.
Natembeya has repeatedly claimed that individuals from neighbouring Uganda were being registered in Endebess Sub-county as part of what he describes as a coordinated effort by influential figures within the Kenya Kwanza administration to influence voting patterns ahead of the 2027 General Election.
The governor raised the issue during a meeting with IEBC Commissioner Moses Alutalala Mukhwana on 2 July and has also presented the matter before the Senate County Public Accounts Committee, calling for a formal investigation.
Separately, a youth lobby group, Niko Kadi, has alleged that voter registration teams have faced intimidation, claiming the incidents amount to interference with the voter mobilisation exercise.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has, however, strongly denied the allegations.
Trans Nzoia County IEBC Coordinator Patrick Wanyama described the claims as “unfounded and misleading”, maintaining that the Kenya Integrated Elections Management System (KIEMS) kits used for voter registration are geo-restricted, fully traceable and cannot be deployed outside Kenya.
He added that voter registration requires a valid Kenyan national identity card or passport, leaving no legal basis for non-citizens to be enrolled. Wanyama also urged anyone with credible evidence of fraudulent registration to submit it to the commission for investigation.
The controversy reflects longstanding concerns surrounding cross-border communities along the Kenya-Uganda frontier, where ethnic groups such as the Samia and Iteso live on both sides of the border, sometimes complicating verification of nationality.
Similar concerns have arisen in the past. In May 2025, Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party suspended or cancelled internal elections in several villages in Busia District after local officials alleged that hundreds of Kenyan nationals had crossed the border to participate in the exercise.
While that incident involved Ugandan party elections rather than Kenya’s electoral process, it highlighted the challenges posed by shared ethnic ties, cross-border movement and identity documentation in border regions.
To date, no publicly verified evidence has been produced to substantiate claims that Ugandan nationals have been unlawfully registered as Kenyan voters in Trans Nzoia, and the IEBC maintains that its registration systems contain safeguards designed to prevent such occurrences.
