8 IRI/NDI Zimbabwe International Election Observation Mission Final Report Throughout electoral preparations, the ZEC took a legalistic approach and generally complied with the minimum standards of the law rather than employing its discretion to go beyond the letter of the law to maximize public confidence. Consequently, concerns were raised about the ZEC’s level of inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability, leading to accusations by an array of stakeholders that the ZEC was politically biased. The ZEC took several positive steps in the administration of the elections, including discarding the voters roll used for the 2013 harmonized elections; employing biometric voter registration (BVR) to develop a new voters roll; and using polling station-based rather than ward-based voters rolls. However, concerns were raised about issues such as the design of the presidential ballot paper, which did not align with legal requirements and seemed to benefit the ruling party’s presidential candidate by placing his name at the top of a second column rather than close to the mid-point in a single alphabetical column. There were also initial concerns about the placement of the polling booths at polling stations, a decision by the ZEC that would have undermined the secrecy of the ballot had the ZEC not ultimately reversed itself on this issue. Voter registration was conducted using the new BVR system over four phases, with an additional mop-up phase. Following voter registration, there was an inspection period where physical centers were established for voters to check the voters roll. Additionally, for the first time, voters could check their registration details by mobile phone or online. The ZEC cleaned the voters roll through a deduplication process based on BVR data. Overall, 79 percent of eligible voters were registered, with a significant increase in young registrants. However, registration rates for urban areas were dramatically lower than rural registration rates. The ZEC refused to release an electronic copy of the preliminary voters roll (as was done in 2013), citing errors, but did ultimately provide an electronic copy of the final voters roll (though too late in the process for any issues to be addressed). Two audits of the final voters roll were conducted by local groups, with both identifying shortcomings. The Pachedu report concluded that these issues compromised the quality of the voters roll while the report by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) found that the 2018 voters roll was an overall improvement over the 2013 voters roll. Constituency delimitation was not conducted in advance of the 2018 harmonized elections. The last exercise was conducted over ten years ago ahead of the 2008 elections. Under the 2013 Constitution, the number of registered voters per constituency should vary by 20 percent or less. However, for the 2018 elections, the number of registered voters for 106 of 210 constituencies varied by more than 20 percent, undermining the equality of the vote. Concerns were also raised that a version of the voters roll was not made available in advance of candidate nominations to enable aspirants to verify that the names they were submitting in support of their candidacy were on the voters roll, as stipulated by law. However, this issue did not result in any prospective candidates having their candidacy rejected. Candidate nominations on June 14 saw a record number of presidential aspirants, political parties contesting the election, and independent parliamentary candidates. The ZEC engaged in a nationwide multifaceted voter education campaign. The ZEC further accredited 78 civil society organizations (CSOs) to conduct voter education activities. However, concerns were raised about delays by the ZEC in the release and inadequate distribution of voter education materials. While a few public forums were held to bring together representatives of different political parties at the national level, generally the campaign did not feature debates