Eight people who are registered under one address will vote
in five different constituencies in Harare in one of the eye-popping
discoveries during an analysis of the voters roll recently released by the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
ZEC has come under fire from the MDC Alliance led by Nelson
Chamisa for allegedly trying to fiddle with the voters roll to give President
Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling Zanu PF an advantage ahead of the July 30
harmonised elections.
The electoral body only released the contentious roll a few
days ago amid accusations that it had violated the constitution by delaying the
release of the voters register until after the nomination court.
An analysis of the voters roll carried out by The Standard
with help from a top United States biometric voter registration (BVR) expert,
Wes Beal, revealed several anomalies that could put a dent on the credibility
of the voters roll.
In what could be a tip of the iceberg, eight people are
registered under a fictitious address in Harare’s Highlands suburb and they
will vote in five different constituencies in the capital despite the fact that
the elections would be polling station-based.
Investigations by The Standard that involved searching
Harare City Council records showed that an address, 3 Kew Drive in Highlands,
does not exist, but eight people used it to register to vote during the BVR
process that began last year.
They will vote in Glen view North, Harare East, Harare
West, Kuwadzana and Harare Central. None of the registered voters from that
address share a surname.
A search at the Highlands council district offices showed
that 3 Kew Drive does not exist.
Officials at the council offices said they did not have any
rates history of the purported property and did not know where it was located.
Council records show that numer 1 Kew Road is Highlands
Primary School, followed by 7 Kew Road, which is just next to the school.
Another fictitious address used to register potential
voters was 6 Mabelreign, which has 26 registered voters.
Just like those from 3 Kew Driver, the Mabelreign potential
voters will cast their ballots in different constituencies. Attempts to locate
this address also failed.
Beal said the issue of duplicates stood out on the voters
roll, especially in villages, police and army cantonment areas, but said these
were not much to worry about.
“Regarding the duplicate addresses, what I think may turn
out to be a bigger problem are the addresses with less than 100 people, but
more than that should be at a single address,” he said.
“For example, in Harare West, there are 26 people listed as
living at ‘6, Mabelreign’.
“What I find more confusing is that those people, all at
the same address, are listed as having seven different polling locations, and
nine different polling stations.”
An Microsoft excel analysis of the voters roll shows that
there are at least
68 001 addresses with more than one polling station
assigned to people that live at the same address.
However, the analysis is not conclusive given that ZEC made
numerous spelling mistakes and entered the same address in different styles.
One such scenario was 1 Glynde Ave, Mabelreign, Harare,
entered on three occasions as either 1, Glynde Avenue, Mabelreign or 1, Glynde,
Mabelreign, Harare; the correct address is Glynde Avenue, Mabelreign.
There was also a notable reduction of registered voters
from the provisional voters roll. But in the absence of the provisional voters
roll, it is not possible to tell what led to the decrease.
In Mutoko North, there was a decrease of 1,65% from the
number of registered voters released on May 8 by Zec.
On the provisional roll, there were 23 710 to 23 319, but
in in the final voters roll, 391 registrants had been removed.
Hurungwe West lost 99 voters, while in Magunje there was a
decrease of 136 voters. In Kariba, 100 entries were removed, while in Mhangura,
only six names were removed.
The voters roll also shows the largest group of registered
voters were between the ages of 30 and 34, which has 738 000 voters
representing 13,92% of all voters.
The largest age bracket of voters are those under the age
of 35 at 44,54%, those between 35 and 60 constitute 13% and those above 60 are
12% of potential voters.
Those born after 1980 constitute 52% of the voting
population, the analysis showed.
“On ages, another number to look at is 52, 88% of the
electorate which is made up of people born after 17 April, 1980,” Beal said.
“I don’t know about previous elections, but in this
election, a majority of registered voters are ‘born free’.”
Harare East MDC-T candidate Obert Gutu said the errors on
the voters roll showed a lack of commitment to a clean election by Zec and the
ruling Zanu PF.
“You would not understand why the proclamation was hurried
when the voters roll was in such a mess,” he said.
“What should have happened is that Zec must have taken time
to clean this roll, release a final voters roll and allow it to lie for
inspection so that all errors are cleared.”
The Elections Resource Centre (ERC), an independent polls
watchdog, said Zec must avail the provisional voters roll to enable people to
track the data changes on the final roll, “it is important to note that since
(Zec) has not yet released either the 2018 preliminary voters roll or the 2018
exclusion list,” the ERC said,“it is not possible to fully assess the quality
of the 2018 final voters roll.
“The High Court has ruled that (Zec) should release the
2018 preliminary voters roll in an electronic format that was used during the
voters’ inspection.
“We urge Zec to urgently comply with the court order and
release not only the 2018 preliminary voters roll, but also the exclusion list
in electronic format as has already been done for the final voters roll.”
The Zimbabwe Elections Support Network said it had
commissioned its own study into the voters roll and would only comment upon
completion of the analysis.
Zec acting chief elections officer Utloile Silaigwana said
he could not respond to queries from The Standard because he was out of the
office.
He referred all questions to public relations director
Justin Manyau. Manyau said he had given the questions to the “relevant
departments”, but there was no response at the time of going to print.
MDC-T secretary general Douglas Mwonzora said Zec lacked
the independence to run a credible election.
“We have had to drag Zec to the courts so that it
implements constitutional provisions and along the way Zec has been resisting,
only to be forced by the courts to comply with the law,” he said.
“From the diaspora vote, aliens’ right to vote, release of
the provisional voters roll, extension of voter registration and access to the
printing of ballots, we have had to fight while Zec did everything to block
it.”
Justice Priscilla Chigumba has led the fight to resist the
changes and along the way she has made gaffes, which have cast doubts on her
credibility and impartiality.
Addressing a parliamentary portfolio committee early this
year, Chigumba said the constitution provided for polling station-based voting.
She told the committee that the new constitution
effectively bars diaspora voting.
However, Gutu, who is also a lawyer by profession, said
Chigumba’s interpretation of the Constitution was wrong.
“The constitution adopted in 2013 does not disallow people
in the diaspora to vote, it does not even create the polling station-based
voting. with all due respect to the learned judge, she misinterpreted the
constitution,” he said.
“It does not even say that one has to be physically present
in Zimbabwe to cast their vote. Zec should have put in place systems to allow
diasporans to vote.”
Gutu said there was serious need for a structural change of
the Zec secretariat and commissioners for Zimbabwe to hold credible elections.
“Without cleaning out the hygiene issues at the commission,
the polls will be compromised,” Gutu said.
Gutu said Zec was wrong in advising Mnangagwa to call for
an election when they did not have a voters roll.
“Zec was supposed to gazette the voters roll first after
which the president would have proclaimed the elections.
This mess we are in now is because of systems that are
being manipulated,” he said.
Former Finance minister Tendai Biti said Mnangagwa had up
to August 22 to hold an election but instead chose to rush the country into a
poll without a voters roll.
He said they suspected collusion between Zec and Zanu PF in
the alleged plot to rig the elections. Standard
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