Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum registers are closed for general (or municipal) elections, the ZESN survey gives reason to doubt the validity of the Registrar-General’s figures used by the Delimitation Commission. So does a comparison of his figures with the 1997 Inter-Censal Survey conducted by the Central Statistical Office. As table 2 (Appendix) shows, in Matabeleland South the figure for registered voters used by the Delimitation Commission was well over 100% of the maximum possible population, not allowing for any deaths between 1997 and 2000! Registered voters were also warned to confirm their registration on a special form in order to stay on the roll, even if they had registered very recently. It is unclear how many registered voters were aware of this additional requirement. Registrations not confirmed, it was warned informally but not publicised in the media, would be removed from the roll before the election. No written, official proof of such confirmation or of late registration was given, which was the cause of immense worry and public criticism, both before and after the election. During polling, tens of thousands who had registered were not able to find their names on the constituency rolls. The official turnaway figures for the election were not released, but estimated by various observers at between 10 and 20%. Based on its observations at 200 (of a total of 3 850) polling stations nationwide during the elections, ZESN has suggested that at least 139 370 voters (5,5%) were turned away.l The Registrar-General was reported to have said the permissible margin of error in compiling the roll was 10%. One wonders whether the United Nations Development Programme, whose offer of technical and financial support was reportedly rejected by the State President, would have regarded this margin of error as acceptable. Zanu-PF publicly worried about its supporters who might not have (re-)registered. The NDI bought Zanu-PF a complete roll.li It was unclear as to how the party would identify its own members, unless there was some mechanism to transfer the Zanu-PF membership database into the national voters’ roll. Both had reportedly been computerised by the same firm. In 1999, Margaret Dongolii drew Parliament’s attention to ‘Zanu-PF computerisation’ which had ‘“deliberately” or ignorantly [been] understood to be the voter registration. I do not want to believe what the rural people are saying is true – that those registered through this process automatically get registered as voters.’ The revised voters’ roll was not open to public scrutiny before being submitted to the Delimitation Commission in mid-April. Only from 1-13 June were 3 500 centres open for voters to check their registration. The voters roll reportedly contained 5 049 815 names. It cost Z$7 000 per constituency register. Both The Herald and the Daily News claimed to have been inundated with calls from voters whose names had been omitted from constituency lists. Those omitted included at least three parliamentary candidates from all major parties and at least one nominator! A fortnight before the polls, the MDC identified over 10 000 voters who had registered but were not on the constituency lists. The urgent High Court application by the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats to have the poll conducted under the 1995 constituencies was rejected. The ‘final’ roll was widely described as remaining ‘a shambles’. The State President promised a supplementary roll to placate irate voters. The supplementary rolls were not available at all polling booths at the start of voting and not all polling supervisors permitted voters with proof of their registration to vote if they did not appear on the constituency lists. Some 86 000 citizens of British descent were also threatened, by the Registrar-General, with removal of their citizenship as well as their voting rights. Zimbabweans of British descent were informed collectively by a news report that they had been stripped of their entitlement to Zimbabwean citizenship and passports, despite having, in 1985, renounced their UK citizenship ‘in the form and manner’ specified by the Zimbabwean state. The citizenship of many of Zimbabwe’s (minority of) white judges was also questioned. Justice Chidyausiku (who had been Attorney23