The IEBC has said it did not reject any signatures by Cord’s Okoa Kenya referendum supporters despite their structure or form.
Communications manager Tabitha Mutemi said any mark was admitted as “an intention or consent by a petitioner”.
Mutemi added that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission could not verify the authenticity of any signatures as it lacks a repository.
“The claim that IEBC could not possibly verify signatures because it did not have a repository of samples is true,” she said .
“It is therefore needless to belabour or fault the IEBC on the matter and we could not ridicule ourselves to that extent.”
In a statement on Monday, Mutemi said entries that were rejected were those that were not found in the voters register.
She noted that some had signatures but no ID or passport numbers while others only had names.
The IEBC said last week that Cord did not meet the one million constitutional threshold, as only 891,598 were valid. Cord submitted booklets containing 1.4 million signatures in October 2015.
The electoral body said some of the signatures were by one person and urged the coalition to start another round of signature collection if they want to want to keep pushing the referendum agenda.
But Coalition chiefs Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetang’ula and tens of lawmakers threatened to kick its commissioners out, promising “a major statement” on the direction of the plebiscite push.
Wetang’ula (Bungoma Senator) and Kalonzo (Wiper leader) said Cord was considering “legal and extra-legal means” of dealing with the IEBC’s determination.
The Senator said Cord has many avenues to explore following the IEBC’s determination, following their claim that the commission was in cahoots with the Jubilee coalition.
Cord leader Raila Odinga and Kalonzo earlier accused the commission of colluding with Jubilee MPs to reject its Okoa Kenya signatures.
Raila said National Assembly Majority leader Aden Duale should be probed alongside Sakaja over the claims. But Sakaja said Jubilee was displeased with the IEBC’s manner of conducting activities.
