Election Day Checklist for Kenyan Campaign Managers

Election day is won in the weeks before it. Use this checklist to find your gaps early, while there is still time to fix them.

Four weeks out: people

Check your agent list stream by stream. Every stream needs a main agent, and busy streams need a relief agent. Every ward needs a few reserves.

Prepare signed appointment letters and submit your agent list following IEBC’s requirements and deadlines. Set training dates for every ward.

Confirm your ward coordinators and polling-centre captains. If a ward coordinator is weak, replace them now, not on election eve.

By four weeks out, have

Two weeks out: logistics and money

Plan transport ward by ward: which vehicles or boda bodas, which routes and who pays. Remember agents need to get home late at night after counting.

Set the facilitation budget for agents and mobilisers, and set up bulk M-Pesa payments so money goes out early on the day and every payment is recorded.

Print agent packs with the pocket sheet, contact numbers and a checklist for the day. Buy power banks and airtime.

One week out: communication and the war room

Test your reporting route. Ask every ward coordinator to send a test report to the war room and check that someone answers.

Share the war room numbers, with backups. Set the shift rota. Confirm your lawyer and the police contacts for each sub-county.

Brief everyone on the report format: where, when, who is reporting, what happened and what is needed.

Election eve and election day

On election eve, confirm every agent by phone. Send airtime and lunch money early. Check that agent packs have reached every ward.

Polling runs from 6am to 5pm. Voters already in the queue at 5pm are still allowed to vote, so agents must not leave early.

Election-day timeline

After the count

Keep agents at the constituency and county tally centres until the final declaration.

Match every agent’s form photo against the forms IEBC publishes, and follow up any difference with your lawyer. Petition deadlines are short: 7 days for presidential petitions and 28 days for other seats.

Pay and thank your agents promptly. You will need them again. UshindiOS brings stream readiness, polling agents, logistics, incidents and results forms into one election-day view. It does not replace official IEBC procedures or results.

After the count, check