Nominated or Elected: The Seats You Never Voted For, Explained
Some of the people sitting in Parliament and in your county assembly were never on any ballot paper.
They were nominated from party lists, and the lists were written and submitted before you voted. This confuses people every cycle, and the confusion is reasonable, because nothing on election day tells you it is happening.
Where nominated seats exist
In the National Assembly, alongside the 290 constituency members and the 47 county woman representatives, a number of members are nominated from party lists to represent special interests, including youth, persons with disabilities and workers.
In the Senate, alongside the 47 elected senators, members are nominated to represent women, youth and persons with disabilities.
In county assemblies, alongside the ward members elected across the 1,450 wards, members are nominated to satisfy the gender rule and to represent marginalised groups and persons with disabilities.
County assemblies are where most Kenyans encounter the practice, because the numbers involved are larger and the people concerned are local.
How the lists are actually filled
Before the election, each party submits a list to the IEBC. The list is ranked, and the ranking matters more than almost anything else in the process, because seats are filled from the top down.
After the election, nominated seats are allocated to parties in proportion to what they won. A party that wins a large share of seats gets a large share of the nominated seats. A party that wins nothing gets nothing, regardless of who is on its list.
Which produces the single most important fact for a voter: your ward vote does two things. It elects your MCA, and it contributes to your party's share of the nominated seats in that assembly.
You do not vote for a nominated member. You vote for the size of the party's entitlement.
Why the lists exist at all
To fix a representation problem that open competition alone did not fix.
The Constitution requires that no more than two thirds of the members of an elective public body be of the same gender, and it requires representation for groups that rarely win an open seat. Party lists are the mechanism chosen to close that gap after the votes are counted.
Related: the rule the whole mechanism serves.
Why party lists end up in court
Because a ranked list is a distribution of guaranteed jobs, decided internally, usually late, by a small number of people.
Disputes are routine and they follow a pattern. Somebody expected a place and was left off. Somebody was placed below a person they consider less qualified. A list was alleged not to have followed the party's own rules, or the required alternation between genders, or the required inclusion of a category.
Party disputes of this kind go to the Political Parties Disputes Tribunal, and from there into the court system. Every cycle produces a run of them, and every cycle they are treated as a surprise.
Related: the rules you should read before any of this.
What this means if you want one of those seats
Start earlier than you think, and start inside the party.
A nominated seat is not won by campaigning in a ward. It is won by being on a list, high enough, from a party that wins enough. All three of those are decided in party organs, under party rules, on a party timetable that closes before the general election.
Anyone hoping for a nominated seat in 2027 who is not already active in a party's organs, documented as a member, and known to the people who compile the list, is hoping rather than campaigning.
Related: what party membership actually is.
What to do with a party list before you vote
Ask for it. Party lists are submitted to the IEBC and they are not secret.
Read the top of the list, because that is the part that will be filled. Check whether the people on it are known in the county, whether the alternation and category requirements appear to have been met, and whether anyone on it has ever attended a meeting in your ward.
Then ask the party's candidates in your area a direct question: who is number one on your county assembly list, and why. A candidate who does not know is telling you how their party makes decisions.
That is a question worth asking well before 10 August 2027, because after the votes are counted the list is fixed and the seats are simply handed out.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does someone become a nominated MP or MCA in Kenya?
Parties submit ranked lists to the IEBC before the general election. After the results are in, nominated seats are allocated to parties in proportion to what they won, and are filled from the top of each party's list downwards. Voters never mark a ballot for a nominated member.
Does my vote count towards nominated seats?
Yes, indirectly. Your ward or constituency vote helps decide how many seats a party wins, and the number of nominated seats a party receives is proportional to that. Voting for a party therefore contributes to the size of its nominated entitlement even though you never see the list on the ballot.
Why are nominated seats needed?
They exist to meet constitutional representation requirements that open competition has not met on its own. The Constitution requires that no more than two thirds of the members of an elective public body be of the same gender, and requires representation for groups that rarely win an open seat, including youth and persons with disabilities. Party lists are the mechanism chosen to close that gap after the votes are counted.