How a Kenyan Election Petition Works, From Filing to Judgment

Updated 2 October 2026.

An election petition is the only lawful route to overturning a declared result in Kenya. Not a press conference. Not a protest. Not a letter to the IEBC.

A court, a pleading, and a clock that starts the moment the result is declared.

Here is the whole sequence, in the order it happens.

The declaration starts the clock, and the two deadlines it starts

Nothing about a petition begins until a result is declared. Until then there is no decision to challenge.

For the presidency, the declaration is made at the national tally once the Form 34 series has been assembled from every polling station. For the other five seats, a returning officer declares at the constituency or county tally.

That declaration is the event every deadline below counts from. A campaign still arguing about arithmetic on the day of the declaration has already spent part of its window.

Related: how the presidential chain is assembled.

A presidential petition is filed at the Supreme Court within 7 days of the declaration, and the court must determine it within 14 days of filing.

Every other election petition is filed within 28 days of the declaration of that result.

These periods come from the Constitution and the Elections Act. They are not extendable by agreement between the parties, and no amount of goodwill from the other side creates an extra day. A petition filed late is not a weak petition. It is not a petition at all, and a court will say so before it looks at a single allegation.

Which court hears which seat

The Supreme Court hears the presidential petition, at first instance and finally.

The High Court hears petitions concerning a governor, a senator, a woman representative and a member of the National Assembly.

Petitions concerning a member of a county assembly are heard by magistrates' courts gazetted for that purpose. A magistrate hearing an MCA petition is exercising a jurisdiction conferred for the election cycle rather than an ordinary civil one.

Related: the position seat by seat.

What actually goes into the petition

A petition is a pleading, and a pleading is a set of specific claims a court can rule on.

It names the parties, states the result complained of, and sets out the grounds. The grounds have to be particular. "The election was rigged" is not a ground. "At these named polling stations, the figure on Form 38A does not match the figure carried to Form 38B, by these amounts" is.

Evidence is filed with it. Kenyan election petitions run largely on affidavits and documents, with cross-examination allowed on a limited basis where the court permits it. So the material you can rely on is the material you already had on the day you filed.

Fees are payable on filing, and the petition rules set them. Security for the respondents' costs is a separate deposit, fixed by section 78 of the Elections Act: Sh1 million for a presidential petition, Sh500,000 against a member of Parliament or a governor, and Sh100,000 against an MCA, lodged within ten days of filing. Ask the registry for the current fee rather than relying on what somebody paid last time.

What the court is deciding at the hearing

Two questions, not one.

First, whether what the petitioner alleges actually happened. That is a question of evidence, and the burden sits with the petitioner throughout.

Second, whether what happened matters. Kenyan election law does not void a result for every irregularity. The test asks whether the election was conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Constitution and the written law, and whether any non-compliance affected the result.

That second question is where most petitions are decided, and it is the reason a petition full of true complaints can still fail.

What the judgment can do

A court can dismiss the petition and leave the result standing.

It can uphold the petition and declare the election void, which makes the seat vacant and sets a fresh election in motion.

It can, where the evidence establishes the correct figures rather than merely casting doubt on the declared ones, determine that a different candidate was validly elected.

It can make findings about the conduct of individuals and refer matters onward, including to the prosecuting authority where an election offence appears to have been committed.

And it will deal with costs, which normally follow the event. A petitioner who loses can expect to pay the respondents' costs, which is the practical reason security is required at the start.

What to do about all of this before 10 August 2027

Everything above depends on documents that either exist by the evening of polling day or do not exist at all.

Put an agent in every polling stream and make sure each one leaves with a signed copy of the results form for that stream. Log every incident the same day, with the time, the station and the name of the officer present. Keep the copies somewhere central rather than in the pocket of whoever collected them.

A campaign that does that has a petition available to it in 2027 if it turns out to need one. A campaign that does not has a grievance, and a grievance is not a pleading.