As Kenya waits patiently for the results of yesterday’s elections to trickle in, I like many others went online today to check the status on the results at the main Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) web site. I was greeted with the following screen:

I have to say I am NOT entirely surprised that the IEBC web site has crashed since this sort of thing seems(?) to happen to some Goverment web sites when they are expected to handle online massive traffic as a result of very important information – such as the recent examination results from the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) – a web site that seems to crash every year without fail when the KCPE and KCSE results are released to the public.

However, in what I would call a success(?) in light of the main IEBC web site going offline, IEBC had already set-up a dedicated web site for the Presidential Election results at vote.iebc.or.ke that seems to be working flawlessly with more or less real-time results as of this writing as seen below (BUT results seen on TV seem to be more up to-date than the online results):

In addition to having what seems to real-time election results, the web site has a link where you can download a “gadget” that you can then embed on a web site so as to disseminate the same information. Sadly, I am NOT sure why but I actually tried to get the snippet of code to install the gadget on this blog but for some reason could not seem to download it. Therefore, its something of a mixed bag for the IEBC as far as digitally disseminating the vital information that is the election results today, given that everyone is on the edge of their seats waiting to see/hear what the final outcome is. Whatever happens, it’s still too early to call given that the results are still coming in even as Uhuru Kenyatta has a significant lead on Raila Odinga.