Reuters’ 44m figure for Raila sets Twitter on fire
Kenyans are still anxiously waiting for the official presidential results announcement from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, three days after the process.
Some of the international media houses including Reuters and BBC stepped in and continue with the tallying process.
But on Friday afternoon, thousands of Kenyans following the process in Reuter’s website detected an error that caused panic for minutes before being fixed.
They had keyed in extra figures in their tabulation process, which indicated that the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya Coalition presidential candidate Raila Odinga was way ahead with 44 million votes compared to his opponent William Ruto of UDA who was at 4.6 million.
They later corrected the error without explanation.
Kenyans on Twitter, who are always alert to such cases were quick to detect the mistake and started sharing screenshots of the error.
According to the electoral commission, 22 million Kenyans are registered as voters, and only 14 million took part in the voting exercise that was conducted on Tuesday.
Currently, the electoral commission is still receiving its final results and comparing results in Forms34As sent through digitally with the physical forms with the party agents.
Even as Kenyans continue waiting, the commission has continued to call for patience and that it will release the results once they have finalized everything.
Deputy President Ruto and Mr Odinga are closely following each other in the results.
The constitution demands that the winner who garners 50+1 per cent of the total votes cast will be the President-elect.