These things matter.
You want to create systems that give your the edge.
The edge in politics and election is INTELLIGENCE GATHERING.
That inform ACTIONS to be taken.
You want first to make sure you have trained and recruited agents.
You have built secure systems which can inform you on hourly basis the lay of the land.
System Chirchir built do something like that - every 30 minutes or so - the agent reports on key happenings.
How many people have come to polling stations, anything of concerns, and they can call a call center.
You want them to report on everything on the polling station - checking in every few minutes.
Within each const - you want to have roving team - that can fix things quickly.
If turnout is bad - you want to quickly move around villages - with whistles and drums - bring people to vote.
That is long before it get to 5pm closing time.
5pm - is when counting happens - and that is when rubber now meets the road.
Now long before election - Intelligence and Counter- Intelligence is everything.
You want to know everything you opponent is planning.
If he is planning to inflitrate your agents - you should know long before they do.
If he is planning to rig - you should know - and know the hows - the whos - everything.
Elections are not won by boys like Raila or drunkards like Uhuru.
For Kalenjin - they are almost at home in intelligence, counter-intelligence, reconnaissance - because this what our people did long time ago - to be able to become successfully cattle rustlers and warmongers - meticous planning based on intelligence (for rustling) or reconnaissance for war is part of kalenjin culture.
This is what gave Moi 25yrs edge. This is key to Ruto success against combine force of Uhuru (State) and Raila. To be ahead - you need to know everything.
Kalenjin warriors before they go to war - must seek permission from Laibon - and that will be granted only if there is full intelligence report - it takes almost three months of survey - before any cattle raid is sanctioned. The same with war. After full intelligence - the actual war - is very swift and very effective....because by then everything would have been known...what time you sleep, what you eat, whether you come out to pee at night, how many cows, how many weapons you go, how many watch guards,dogs. Intelligence guys would watch you from trees at night or some could even pretend to be mad men who wandered into you village. Then attack plan is designed based on the intelligence.
Bottomline - Intelligence & Counter-Intelligence will determine the winner. And in this Kalenjin nation are at it's very best.
1) No need to personalize the issue..I believe each party can hire and have the best IT team.There are too many IT professionals in Kenya and workdwide with voting systems experience so it's not just njoroge and chirchir.
2) I think Ruto has money.Contributions from party candidates,business people his own cash.So the issue in this election is who has more money to buy agents..The COST OF BRIBING A PARTY agent and whether you have control of county security team to either assist in agent bribery or stop voter bribery.