In a letter to the French government, Frederic Beylier, the Chief Operating Officer of the French Company of OT-Morpho, the biometrics firm that supplied the electronic system used to collate the voting results in Kenya’s presidential election that has since been declared “null and void” by the Supreme Court, said there had been no manipulation of the result. The letter was sent following what OT-Morpho called an “in-depth audit” undertaken with the assistance of an external group of experts and security software companies.

National Super Alliance leader Raila Odinga has accused OT-Morpho of being involved in rigging Kenya’s August elections.

Mr Beylier said OT-Morpho had handed over the 45,000 tablets used to biometrically identify voters and the system used to transmit the voting figures,together with a copy of each of the forms 34A used to rally the votes, as part of the audit process. The company’s spokesman said it had transmitted all its logs to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and stressed their willingness to take part in a further external audit if organised by the IEBC.

OT-MORPHO “COMPLETE POLITICAL NEUTRALITY”

In the letter Mr Beylier said: “We obviously checked if there could have been questionable manipulations by any authorised or unauthorised persons and can confirm there was no manipulation of data that could raise questions”.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga had accused OT-Morpho of being complicit in allowing access to its servers and the manipulation of the vote transmission process. The opposition also alleged that an algorithm was introduced into the system to falsify the vote.

Frederic Beylier says his company conducted its work in “complete political neutrality” and attacked what he sees as a campaign of threats and intimidation against OT-Morpho and its employees.

“Some people are trying to make us the scapegoat of the political situation in Kenya and we don’t intend to play that role”, Mr Beylier said.