“The chairman is the only one mandated to say who is the winner and who is the loser,” said one of the three civil society activists who filed the petition, Khelef Khalifa, the director of Muslims for Human Rights. “If he himself says he cannot guarantee this election will be free and fair, you say to yourself, what is this whole thing? When the chairman says we’re not ready, you must also cancel it.”

The three filed the petition, based on their standing as Kenyan voters, on Oct. 22. The court agreed on Tuesday afternoon to hear arguments from both sides on Wednesday morning.

According to the petition, the political standoff around the scheduled election risks “disenfranchising more than six (6) million voters of a leading candidate that has withdrawn from the race.”

The petitioners also argue that Mr. Odinga’s withdrawal should have reset the election clock, allowing for all the parties to hold fresh talks on nominations. That process, presumably, could have resulted in a candidate for Mr. Odinga’s political party, but it also would have delayed the elections for at least another 30 days — or perhaps longer, depending on the court’s interpretation of Kenya’s election law and the court’s prior rulings.

Mr. Khalifa argued that the petition was also motivated by a hope to save off more widespread violence. Nearly 70 people have been killed at the hands of state security forces, according to human rights groups.

“This is a very very dangerous situation,” he said by telephone from Mombasa, Kenya’s second-largest city after Nairobi. “The state of things now worries us. There is so much more tribal animosity now than ever before.”

“This country, it can easily go the Rwanda way,” he added, invoking the 1994 genocide in the East African country.