In a statement by the Reuters Press Team on Friday, August 12, the news outlets stated that the anomaly which placed Azimio la Umoja’s candidates – Raila Odinga’s tallies at 44 million was a case of data entry error.
The London-based media house with hubs in regions around the world stated that the anomaly was corrected after social media users raised concerns.
“Some incorrect data briefly appeared in our live feed to Google of results from the Kenya election as a result of human error in data entry.
“This was corrected within 14 minutes, as soon as we became aware of it. We apologise for the mistake and have taken steps to address it,: read the statement in part.
The statement by the news outlet came after various social media users claimed that their system had been hacked in favour of some candidates.
“Just to confirm that the Google portal collating form 34Bs was just hacked. Interestingly, whoever hacked it put an impossible figure for Odinga – perhaps to highlight the weaknesses of the digital system.
“Correction – We don’t know this was hacking. Could have been a data entry error. Need more information,” Nic Cheeseman tweeted.
Reuters is among global news outlets that have been tallying results of the just concluded presidential election ahead of the official announcement by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).
Another global agency tallying its results alongside a section of the Kenyan media is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
The media organisations have been depending on the Form 34As and 34Bs that have been uploaded on the IEBC portal.
IEBC is in the process of verifying the results from the polling stations before the official announcement of the President-elect is made.
