Provisional voters’ roll inspection begins 

Elita chikwati Senior Reporter
Inspection of the provisional voters’ roll starts today at 10 807 centres established by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) countrywide.

The process allows prospective voters to check if their details are correctly captured and to correct anomalies.

Those on the provisional voters’ roll are people who registered before the cut-off date of April 6, 2018.

People who registered after April 6 will appear on the final voters’ roll.

Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, ZEC chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said the inspection shall be open from May 19 to May 29 from 7am to 5pm during the entire inspection period.

“This is a critical stage in the production of a completely new voters’ roll for the forthcoming harmonised elections and beyond.

“The inspection follows a series of events that started with the launch of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) blitz and mop up exercise, which saw the commission registering about 5,4 million registrants.

“These entries went through a data cleaning process where some anomalies were identified. The most commonly observed discrepancies arose from typographical errors and incorrect polling station posting while others involved people with the same ID numbers and multiple registrations,” he said.

She said they are expecting to identify more anomalies by subjecting it to public inspection before a final voter’s roll is gazetted.

“The inspection of the provisional voters roll is in itself an auditing process by citizens,” she said.

ZEC had also compiled an exclusion list, which consists of registrants who could not be on the provisional voters roll for various reasons including multiple registrations, sharing of the same ID number and the deceased.

The exclusion lists, she said will be provided alongside the provisional voters roll at polling stations where the anomalies were identified.

“This will give registrants an opportunity to rectify the identified anomalies. There are 11 018 registrants on the exclusion list.

“The commission will display polling stations specific provisional voters rolls at all the 10 807 established polling stations where all those who registered on or before April 6 are encouraged to check their registration details during the inspection period,” she said.

Justice Chigumba said a minimum of 2019 registration centres have been set up countrywide to facilitate transfers and new registrations during the inspection.

“In addition to the physical inspection of the voters’ roll, details of registrants may be confirmed through mobile phone SMS messages and on the ZEC website.

“The commission is also working on operationalising a USSD code *265# to enable registrants to heck their details. The public will be informed when the protocol is functional. All registrants whose details are incorrect should visit their respective inspection centres for correction as no correction will be done on line,” she said.

The commission has also conducted training on voter education and inspection of the voters roll. Civil society and faith based organisations have also been trained and accredited to conduct voter education. Members of the media have also been trained on accurate and balanced coverage of electoral issues.

Training of inspection and registration officers and supervisors in all 10 provinces has been completed and their deployment is in progress.

She expressed concern that the deployment of officers could be affected by poor road network is some parts of the country.

Justice Chigumba also distanced ZEC from the application circulation on social media.

The app has a ZEC logo and the message “Click to vote”. When one clicks on the command, the message “Congratulations! You have voted for Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa. Your vote counts” appears.

“The message did not originate from ZEC and the Commission does not use apps to communicate public information,” she said.

ZEC also warned those purporting to be electoral management body that they risk being charged with a crime of impersonification.

“The commission is also advising the public that it is not possible for upcoming election candidates to receive votes through a mobile phone app since voters have to present themselves at their respective allocated polling stations to cast their ballots on polling day,” she said.