Form 38: The Senate Seat and the Count That Runs Out of Watchers
Updated 2 October 2026.
The Senate is the counties' chamber, and the senator's result is put together on exactly that basis.
Each of the 47 counties elects one senator. So the electorate for the seat is the whole county, the stations that feed it are every station in the county, and the paperwork follows the same route as the governor's.
Form 38A, written in the polling station
On the night of the count, after the presidential ballots are dealt with, the presiding officer counts the senatorial ballot papers and completes Form 38A for that station.
It carries the station's identity, the registered voters and votes cast there, each senatorial candidate with the votes recorded against the name, the rejected ballots, and the signature block.
That is the record. Everything a county says about its senator on 10 August 2027 is an addition of documents like this one.
Form 38B at the constituency, Form 38C at the county
Each constituency tallying centre collates its station forms onto Form 38B. The county tallying centre adds those Form 38Bs into the total for the seat, and Form 38C is the declaration made there.
Nothing new is counted at this stage, and that is the design. A tally centre that could count would be a second election. A tally centre that can only add is a checkable step, because anybody holding the station forms can repeat the addition themselves.
The ballot that gets the fewest agents
Here is the practical problem with the senatorial paper, and it is worth saying plainly.
Six ballots are counted in the same room in one sitting. Agents arrive fresh for the first and tired for the last. Campaigns brief heavily on the seat their candidate is contesting and lightly on the rest. A party fielding candidates for all six seats often sends one agent to cover all six forms, which is legal and is not the same as watching six counts.
The predictable result is that the senatorial and woman representative counts are the ones with the thinnest scrutiny in many stations, not because anybody decided that, but because attention runs out in the order the counts happen.
A senatorial campaign that wants its own figures cannot assume the party agent will collect them. It has to say so, in writing, in the briefing.
Related: the county's other county-wide form.
What the total actually decides
One senator per county, and the Senate is one of the two houses of Parliament alongside the National Assembly.
The Senate's work touches county revenue, the protection of devolved government and the removal of governors, so the figure written on Form 38C is not a consolation prize below the gubernatorial line. It elects the person who represents the county in the chamber that exists for counties.
What a senatorial agent should be told to write down
Four things, and they fit on a card.
The station identity, copied from the station on arrival so there is something to compare the form's heading against.
A running tally of the senatorial count, kept independently as the votes are called out.
The rejected ballots figure, which is small, decisive in a close county and almost never recorded by anybody in the room.
The time the form was signed, which costs nothing to note and matters enormously if the sequence of events is ever in question.
An agent who leaves with those four things and a signed copy has done the entire job. An agent who leaves with an impression of how the night went has not, however long they sat there.
Related: the rejected-ballot line, in detail.
The Elections (General) Regulations made under the Elections Act prescribe the form, its contents and how it is completed. Any description of a form is secondary to the regulations, and for an agent it is secondary to something even simpler: the signed copy handed over in the polling station.
Ask for it before you leave. A copy you did not collect is a copy that does not exist as far as your campaign is concerned.
What a senatorial campaign should do first
Write one sentence into every agent briefing: collect and keep Form 38A, and do not leave the station without it.
Then build the roster that makes the sentence possible. A county-wide network is months of recruitment, and the campaigns that have one on polling day started it long before the campaign period opened. Recruitment now is cheap. Recruitment in the last fortnight before 10 August 2027 is a scramble that produces names on a list and nobody in a chair.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which form records a Kenyan senator's result?
The Form 38 series. Form 38A is completed at the polling station by the presiding officer after the senatorial ballots are counted, Form 38B collates the station forms at each constituency tallying centre, and Form 38C, completed at the county tallying centre, carries the declaration for the seat.
Why is the senatorial count often watched by fewer agents?
Because six counts happen in the same room in one sitting and attention runs out in the order they occur. Campaigns brief heavily on their own seat, and a single party agent asked to cover all six forms cannot watch six counts with equal care.
How many senators does Kenya elect?
One per county, and Kenya has 47 counties, so 47 senators are elected directly. The Senate sits alongside the National Assembly as one of the two houses of Parliament and deals with matters affecting counties.