Clinton likens U.S. election to Kenya’s flawed vote

In an interview Monday, Hillary Clinton was asked whether she might question the legitimacy of the 2016 U.S. presidential election if more information is revealed showing Russian interference. Her answer: Yes.

And then she turned to an unlikely comparison: last month’s elections in Kenya.

In the NPR interview, Clinton made a bold connection between her loss and the Kenyan election, which initially appeared to end in a second term being awarded to president Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenya’s Supreme Court annulled the results of that race, saying the voting process wasn’t fair and transparent.

Clinton said both the elections were a “project of Cambridge Analytica.”

She then seemed to link the data company to the “really unanswered and problematic questions” that troubled the Kenyan court.

Concerns about the Kenyan election didn’t focus on Cambridge Analytica however. Rather, they were related to the transmission of vote results.

Still, her comments serve to highlight the growing role of large data companies, particularly Cambridge Analytica, in elections worldwide. The comments also underscore the resonance of the Kenyan Supreme Court’s decision — one of the few times a court anywhere has thrown out a national election result.

“We have no such provision in our country,” Clinton said in the interview, referring to the role Kenya’s high court plays in evaluating election complaints. “And, usually, we don’t need it.”

Cambridge Analytica compiles vast amounts of demographic information that it then uses to target messages and advertisements at key voters. The company worked for the proBrexit movement in Britain and the Trump campaign in 2016. It did not respond to questions about Clinton’s recent comments.