A, B and C: How Every Kenyan Results Form Fits Together

Updated 2 October 2026.

Kenya's results forms are numbered by office and lettered by stage. Learn those two rules and every form you are ever handed explains itself.

The number tells you which seat. Form 34 is the presidential result. Form 35 is the member of the National Assembly. Form 36 is the member of the county assembly. Form 37 is the governor. Form 38 is the senator. Form 39 is the county woman representative.

Six offices, six ballot papers, six form series. On 10 August 2027 a voter marks six ballots, and every one of those marks ends up counted on a form from that list.

That order does not run from the largest seat down to the smallest, so memorise it rather than reasoning about it. Read the number off the paper and check it against the list.

What A, B and C actually mean

The letter tells you what stage the form belongs to.

A is the polling station. The A form is completed where the votes are counted, in the room where they were cast, by the presiding officer, in front of the candidates' agents. Form 34A, 35A, 36A, 37A, 38A and 39A are all filled in the same room, on the same night, by the same officer, from six separate counts.

B is the tally centre. The B form adds up A forms. Nothing new is counted at this stage. It is arithmetic performed on numbers that already exist somewhere else, which is what makes it checkable.

C is the declaration, except for two seats. For the President, a governor, a senator and a woman representative, the C form is the one the result is formally declared on, and the level it sits at is the level the seat is decided at. An MP and an MCA are different. Their declaration is made on the B form at the constituency, and the C form is the certificate handed to the winner.

Which tally centre your form goes to

This is the part that decides where a campaign has to put people.

Three of the six seats are county-wide. A governor, a senator and a woman representative are each elected by a whole county, so Form 37, Form 38 and Form 39 are tallied and declared at the county tallying centre.

Two of them are not. An MP is elected by one constituency, so the Form 35 series is tallied at the constituency and the returning officer declares the seat there on Form 35B. An MCA is elected by one ward, and a ward's Form 36 papers are compiled onto Form 36B at the constituency tallying centre that ward sits inside, which is also the form the ward seat is declared on.

The presidential result runs through both levels: Form 34A in the station, Form 34B at the constituency, Form 34C nationally, because the presidency is the only office elected by the entire country.

So a county returning officer declares three seats on the night, and a constituency returning officer declares two while also completing the constituency's contribution to the presidential total. That is not trivia. It tells you which building your campaign needs somebody standing in.

The direction of travel is one way

This is the part people miss, and it is the whole point of the design.

A B form is built from A forms. A C form rests on the B forms beneath it. Numbers move upward and they are never supposed to change on the way. If a figure at the tally centre does not match the figures on the station forms that fed it, that is not a rounding difference. It is a discrepancy, and it is visible to anybody holding both pieces of paper.

Which is why the A form is the one worth having. A campaign that holds station copies can check every claim made above it. A campaign that holds none has to accept whatever it is told.

Related: how to read the station form.

Where the exact layout is written down

The design of each form, what it must contain and how it must be completed, is prescribed in the Elections (General) Regulations made under the Elections Act. That is the authority for the layout, not any description of it, including this one.

For a working agent there is a simpler authority: the copy the presiding officer signs and hands you in the polling station. That copy is the record you can act on. A version circulating on WhatsApp is not.

What the numbering does for a campaign

It tells you how many forms you need, and from where.

An MP candidate needs Form 35A from every stream in the constituency and Form 35B from the constituency tally. A ward candidate needs Form 36A from every stream in the ward. A governor needs Form 37A from every stream in the whole county, Form 37B from every constituency tally and Form 37C from the county tally, and a senator and a woman representative need exactly that same county-wide coverage for Form 38 and Form 39.

Those are three different collection problems, and each of them is solved by the same thing: a named agent, in a named stream, who knows to ask for the form and to keep it.

What to do this week

Write down the number of your seat's form series, the three letters that belong to it, and the level each letter sits at. Put it at the top of your agent briefing.

Then count the streams you have to cover, name a person against each one, and make the collection of a signed A form the single non-negotiable duty in the job description. Everything else an agent does on 10 August 2027 is useful. That one thing is the record.

Related: the presidential chain in full.