Book a briefing
● Party nominations · roll to certificatePrimaries ahead of the general election · 10 Aug 2027

Nominate by
the rules.
Prove it after.

A party primary is decided by members, run by returning officers and answered for by the electoral board. PollGuard gives each of them their own screen and writes every change they make into one record: roll edits, verification decisions, every opening and closing.

When an aspirant appeals, the board answers with the record, not with memory.

Book a briefing Practise in the free sandbox
6
stages, from the roll to the certificate
3
seats: member, returning officer, electoral board
1
receipt per ballot, checkable by the voter
Same night
results tallied at close, exported by the board
The pipeline · 4 lanes × 6 stages

Who does what,
stage by stage

Read across to follow one person through the primary; read down to see who holds each stage. No lane does another lane’s job, and the platform never decides what the board must.

Lane · device
01
Roll & eligibility
02
Identity
03
Delegates & accreditation
04 · The vote
The ballot
05
Tally
06
Certify & archive
Member
Android app
Checks they are on the roll, in the right branch, and asks for a correction before polling.● Today
Photographs their ID document and takes a live selfie in the app.● Today
If named a delegate, carries a one-time accreditation code to the door.Being built
Votes on the phone and gets a receipt code back, one per position.● Today
Enters the code on the check page: recorded, choice not shown.● Today
Sees the certified result; an aspirant may appeal inside the stated window.Being built
Returning officer
Station tablet
Takes roll queries at the branch; every correction they make is written to the record.● Today
Helps members through verification at the station; their actions are recorded under their account.● Today
Accredits delegates at the door against the approved list, one code each.Being built
Runs the station queue: who is waiting, who has voted. Never how.● Today
Closes the station on the board’s call and files the station log and incidents.Being built
Signs the station declaration and hands back the tablet, serial noted.Being built
Electoral board
Command centre
Publishes the eligibility rules and freezes the roll on a stated date.Being built
Reads the matches nobody could clear and rules on each, with a note.● Today
Approves the delegate list and sets the accreditation window.Being built
Opens the ballot, then watches turnout as it comes in.● Today
Closes the ballot. Only then is the official result tallied.● Today
Certifies the result and exports it.● Today
Platform
PollGuard, writing the record
Holds the roll; every edit to it becomes a row in the record.● Today
Scores the selfie against the document and queues every case for a named reviewer.● Today
Issues one-time codes and flags any code presented twice.Being built
Stores the ballot encrypted, refuses a second one for the same position, and issues the receipt.● Today
Tallies the official result once the board has closed the ballot.● Today
Builds the results export, position by position and candidate by candidate.● Today
In PollGuard todayThe ballot itselfBeing built: the party runs this step by its own process todayThe platform acts and writes it down
Three screens · one election · 14:02

What each seat
actually sees

The same county primary at 14:02, from three seats. The member sees their own receipt; the officer, a queue of who is waiting and who has voted; the board, turnout as it comes in and the close. All three screens below are illustrative, with sample figures.

IllustrativeThe member · Android app1One ballot per position, recorded the moment it is cast.2A 64-character receipt code, shortened here. It proves recorded, never the choice.
IllustrativeThe returning officer · station tablet3Every verification waits for a named reviewer. The officer who assists is named in the record.4Who has voted, who is waiting, who needs help. Never how anyone voted.
Illustrative · sample figuresThe electoral board · command centreOpen, watch, close and certify from one screen: on the wall in the tally room, or on a laptop. Turnout while voting is open; the official result after the close.
Aspirants · before the ballot

Who gets onto
the ballot, and why

Every aspirant moves through the same statuses, set by the party’s vetting committee. Each change carries a vetting note, so a cleared or rejected aspirant can be shown exactly what was decided and when. The ballot is built only from cleared aspirants.

  1. Nominated
  2. Under review
  3. Cleared
  4. On the ballot
orRejected, with a noteorWithdrawnAppeal · being built
Today · statuses and vetting notesBeing built · the appeals desk

Four things the board can promise

Each one operational, each one in the record
01

One verified member, one ballot

A second ballot from the same member for the same position is refused by the database itself, not by a screen that could be skipped.

02

Receipts never show a choice

A receipt proves a ballot is on record, to the member and to anyone they show it, and never reveals how they voted.

03

Official results after close

The official tally runs only once the board has closed the ballot. Before that there is turnout, not a result.

04

Every change has an author

Roll edits, verification decisions and every opening and closing are written to the record with the account that made them.

What we do not claim yetSecrecy today is kept by roles. The separation behind it is being built.

Ballots are stored encrypted, but in the same database as the member’s account. Keeping the two apart is being built.

Organisation admins can still see running counts before the close. Hiding them until the close is being built.

Changes to the record carry their author. Reads of it are not yet logged; that is being built too.

Appeals & disputesBeing built

When an aspirant
says it was wrong

The party’s own rules set the window and the panel. The appeals desk we are building keeps the clock, gathers the evidence from the record and writes the ruling next to the result it touches. Until it ships, the record and the results export are what the panel works from.

  1. 01
    FiledThe aspirant files at the secretariat, inside the window, with evidence attached.
  2. 02
    LoggedThe legal desk gives it a reference. The ruling deadline starts counting down for everyone to see.
  3. 03
    EvidenceVerification decisions and the record of changes are pulled from PollGuard, never retyped.
  4. 04
    HearingThe panel hears both sides. A member with a conflict steps out, and that is recorded too.
  5. 05
    RulingUpheld, dismissed or a re-run ordered, with written reasons and the names of those who ruled.
  6. 06
    On the resultThe ruling is attached to the certified result it affects, and every party is notified.
What the panel cannot do
—Learn how a member voted from a receipt. A receipt never carries the choice.
—Edit or remove a row of the record from PollGuard. A correction is a new row.
—Rule after the deadline without the delay being written down.
The night of the primary

What the board
takes home tonight.

When the board closes the ballot, the official tally runs and the results export is ready the same night: every position, every candidate, votes, share and rank. The fuller pack below is being built.

The night, to scale · 17:00 – 19:30Illustrative
1/ 6

files in the board’s pack run today: results by position and candidate. The other five are being built, and each one is labelled so in the export screen.

Each export says which election it came from and when it was made.

Election export · Nairobi primaryIllustrative
DataResults by position and candidate
Votes, share, rank and winner for every seatToday
PDFCertified results sheet
Every seat and candidate, signed by the boardBeing built
CSVResults by station and ward
Ballots per candidate per stationBeing built
CSVTurnout by hour
Ballots cast per hourBeing built
CSVVerification summary
Counts, borderline matches and the reviewer’s decisionsBeing built
CSVThe record
Every change written to the audit log for this electionBeing built
● Live · from the price list, 17 Oct 2026

What a primary costs

Two modules carry a primary: Campaign & nominations, and identity verification for each member who votes. The licence and the per-election engagement fee are billed separately. Prices exclude VAT.

Per electionKES 5,000Campaign & nominationsThe nominations module for one election: aspirants, their vetting statuses and notes.
Per voter, per election · min. 200KES 25Identity verificationDocument, live selfie, liveness prompts and face match. No government register lookup.
From the Federation licenceIncludedCampaign & nominationsThe Federation licence ($180,000 a year: 2,000,000 voters, 12 elections, 10 branches) carries the module. Verification is still per voter.
Worked example · sample rollA county primary with 30,870 verified members, on an Institutional licenceArithmetic from the live list only. Licence ($48,000 a year) and engagement fee on top; VAT excluded.
Identity verification30,870 × KES 25KES 771,750
Campaign & nominations1 electionKES 5,000
Modules for this primaryKES 776,750
See every price Source: pollguard.africa/api/public/pricing. If the list does not load, we show no price rather than an old one.

Questions party secretariats ask

Can members vote by SMS?

No. Ballots are cast on the Android app or at a station tablet. SMS carries one-time sign-in codes, never a ballot.

Is there an iPhone app?

No. Android only, installed directly from pollguard.africa. A member without one votes at a station tablet, helped by a named officer.

Do you check members against a government register?

No. There is no IPRS lookup. The member’s own document is matched to a live selfie with liveness prompts. Software scores the match; a named reviewer approves or declines every verification, and a clear mismatch fails the check.

Can a returning officer see how someone voted?

No. Officers see who has voted, never how. Checking a receipt shows “recorded”, never the choice.

Can anyone see results before the close?

The official tally runs only after the board closes the ballot. Today organisation admins can still see running counts before then; hiding them is being built.

Can we accredit delegates in PollGuard?

Not yet. Delegate list approval and one-time accreditation codes are being built. Until then the party accredits by its own process.

Is PollGuard part of the IEBC process?

No. PollGuard is independent of the IEBC and not endorsed by it. Only the IEBC declares national election results.

Can we rehearse first?

Yes. The Evaluation Sandbox is free: 200 voters, one election, one branch. It is for practice, not a live primary.

Run your primaries
on PollGuard.

Bring your roll size, branches and nomination calendar to a briefing. You leave with the licence, modules and engagement fee in writing, and a plain list of what runs today and what is still being built.

Book a briefing Practise in the free sandbox