In other words, rather than the some 5 874 115 entries on the roll there should not be more than
4 141 588.13
Even without considering these factors, however, indicates that the number of registered
voters exceeds the population of Zimbabwe, in all age bands of 30 and above, by a considerable
margin. This is most notable in the 40 – 44 age group (162%) and the 80+ age group (219%). In
the former, some of the over-registration may be explained by people who are registered as
voters, but were absent from the country during the census count, that is, are part of
Zimbabwe’s Diaspora. The latter group most probably represents a large number of deceased
persons who names still appear on the voters roll. In numerical terms the “over-registration” of
people aged 30+ against the actual population is 1 146 760.
This conclusion is further supported by the fact that there is an unlikely total of 116 195
people aged over 100 still on the roll.
The degree of disjuncture between the ideal roll and actual and the depth of the
problems with the voters roll are underscored if one considers that although the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission took special steps to facilitate registration before the production of the
June roll analysed here, and, although nearly 300 000 deceased people were reported to have
been removed from the roll in the months immediately preceding its compilation,14 there are still
extensive discrepancies of under and over registration.
Voter Distribution and the Census
Table 2 below shows the registration rates below by province. The full breakdown per
constituency is given in Appendix 2.
Table 2: Registration Rates per Province
PROVINCE
340,950
REGISTERED
VOTERS
300,743
1,091,062
788,959
72.3%
Manicaland
912,601
753,982
82.6%
Mashonaland Central
592,771
537,708
90.7%
Mashonaland East
695,271
664,141
95.5%
Mashonaland West
753,965
609,732
80.9%
Masvingo
773,036
727,697
94.1%
Matabeleland North
386,814
362,150
93.6%
Matabeleland South
356,225
351,954
98.8%
Midlands
843,688
777,048
92.1%
6,746,383
5,874,114
87.1%15
Bulawayo
Harare
Total
POPULATION
%
88.2%
This denominator would raise the voter turnout in the March 2008 presidential election to 61%, which
while still low, is more realistic than the roughly 43% reported by ZEC. The voter turnout is likely to
have been higher, suggesting that a roll of just over 4.1 million is still inflated.
1425 000 New Voters Registered Since Last Week The Herald 09.05.13.
15 The total percentage of registered voters differs slightly from Table 1 (88%) since the Zimstat
percentages for age bands yield an adult population of 51.24%, which has been rounded to 52% for
other tables, taking the intervening two years into account. A higher adult population percentage
mitigates the figures here, and thus may be considered to be conservative. An adult population of 6 746
383 (52%) of a total population of the census’ 12 973 808 has been used here.
13
6