registration  point  would  have  a  commissioner  of  oaths  present.  The  MDC-­‐T  and  civic  groups   campaigned  for  the  affidavit  requirement  to  be  entirely  removed,  as  it  continued  to  stand  in  the   way  of  registration  for  thousands  of  voters.  Furthermore,  thousands  had  been  wrongly  turned   away  when  in  fact  they  were  in  compliance  with  requirements,  which  did  not  seem  to  be  clearly   understood  by  all  ZEC  officials.  While  this  situation  improved  during  the  roll-­‐out  period,  with  ZEC   officials  now  apparently  aware  that  there  are  multiple  ways  of  proving  residency,  questions  remain   whether  thousands  of  would-­‐be  voters  initially  turned  away  have  since  returned  to  register,  or   whether  they  have  given  up  in  disgust.       ZESN  also  noted  that  in  certain  rural  districts  such  as  Murehwa  South  and  Rushinga,  as  well  as  in   Mpopoma  in  Bulawayo,  officials  were  signing  affidavits  only  along  biased,  party-­‐political  lines,  and   on  condition  that  those  given  affidavits  proving  residency  would  come  back  to  the  official  and  allow   the  recording  of  the  bar  code  on  their  slip  (see  more  ahead  on  this).70       ZEC  and  Voter  education     ZEC  claimed  on  7  October  that  it  had  begun  a  nationwide  roll  out  of  door  to  door  voter  education.71   However,  in  our  experience  in  Bulawayo  and  Matabeleland,  this  was  largely  ineffectual,  with  very   few  people  randomly  consulted  reporting  any  exposure  to  this  voter  education.  This  observation   was  reinforced  around  the  country.72  The  ZEC  campaign  was  simply  very  poor  during  the  first   phase.  In  Bulawayo,  posters  were  barely  to  be  seen,  and  did  not  have  essential  information  on   them  –  such  as  the  very  important  information  that  everyone  needed  to  re-­‐register:  it  was  quite   obvious  in  Bulawayo  that  even  people  who  were  generally  highly  politicized  were  unaware  that   even  if  they  had  voted  in  every  election  since  1980,  they  now  had  to  re-­‐register  with  BVR.   Information  about  ‘aliens’  and  how  to  prove  residency  was  also  simply  not  widely  available.   Publishing  adverts  in  the  media  is  a  very  ineffectual  way  to  reach  out  to  people,  the  vast  majority  of   whom  have  no  access  to  print  media,  or  even  to  radios.       As  the  registration  process  has  proceeded,  mostly  by  word  of  mouth,  it  is  clear  that  millions  of   Zimbabweans  became  aware  of  the  BVR:  however,  precise  information  about  important  aspects  of   registration  have  remained  poorly  disseminated.  In  particular,  not  enough  has  been  done  to   decampaign  disinformation  being  peddled  by  ZANU  PF  around  the  anonymity  of  the  process  and   the  abuse  of  proof  of  registration  slips  (see  ahead).       Civics  and  Voter  Education     There  is  a  stipulation  in  the  law  relating  to  elections  that  requires  any  organization  that  wants  to  do   voter  education  to  first  be  registered  with  ZEC,  and  ZEC  proved  to  be  initially  very  slow  in   processing  applications  from  NGOs  wanting  to  be  registered.  This  could  take  up  to  four  months.   The  need  to  be  vetted  by  government  before  being  able  to  undertake  what  is  surely  a  basic  citizen’s   responsibility,  namely  to  pass  on  essential  information  to  fellow  citizens  about  their  rights  and  how                                                                                                               70  ZESN,  BVR  Update  No.  8,  1  November  2017.     71  Tshili,  Nqobile:  “Zec  starts  door-­‐to-­‐door  voter  registration  campaign”,  The  Chronicle,  7  October  2017.      Tshili,  Nqobile:  “Zec  didn’t  adequately  publicise  ongoing  voter  registration  blitz”,  The  Chronicle,  12   October  2017.  Mananavire,  Bridget:  “BVR  exercise:  Zec  racing  against  time…  intimidation,  poor  voter   education  noted”,  Daily  News,  12-­‐18  November  2017.     72   20