Appendix A 66 IRI-NDI Pre-Election Assessment Mission Statement Zimbabwe 2018 Harmonized Elections parties or citizen observers with a copy of the preliminary voters roll in a format that would allow them to conduct their own independent audit. ● Failure to Respond to Concerns Regarding Registration Slips – While stakeholders agree that the political climate has improved, serious concerns remain about voter intimidation. Exacerbating these concerns are incidents of voters who have been asked to produce their voter registration serial number by unauthorized officials, which according to the June 7 Afrobarometer report was 31 percent of registered voters. ● Secrecy of the Vote – All Zimbabwean elections dating back to 2000 have been characterized by widespread concerns about the secrecy of the vote. While the law prescribes secrecy, the delegation heard from many groups about efforts to compromise the public’s belief in the secrecy of the vote by taking advantage of limited understanding of the BVR and balloting processes. The ZEC missed several opportunities early in the process to explain the purpose of the registration slip and to inform voters not to disclose it to unauthorized individuals, and thus far has not mounted a broad publicity campaign reassuring citizens about vote secrecy. ● Diaspora Voting – Three million Zimbabweans are estimated to be living outside the country, many due to the ongoing political and economic crises. Many activists thought that the issue of diaspora voting was resolved by the 2013 Constitution��s guarantee of the right to vote for all citizens. However, the Constitutional Court decided on May 29 to deny the petition to allow Zimbabweans outside the country to vote in future elections. While there is no international standard that citizens outside a country must be enfranchised, the trend is to expand the franchise to include citizens living abroad by one of several means. ● Inclusive Elections – While current figures indicate that women and youth (aged 18-40) comprise 54 and 45 percent of the voters roll respectively, insufficient efforts have been made by political stakeholders to secure the full participation of women and marginalized groups. This is evident in the failure to implement of the constitutional provision for gender parity in all elected and appointed offices. Further, women and youth faced particular challenges in accessing party primaries and many have decided to compete as independent candidates; while independent candidacies increase opportunities for political competition, funding and running campaigns without party support constrain such efforts. The consequence of these developments is that the number of women represented in the House of Assembly will decline in 2018. Insufficient adjustments have been made to ensure the full and equitable participation of persons with disabilities in all aspects of the election – as voters, candidates or polling officials. Stakeholders pointed to polling station accessibility as an ongoing challenge, as well as the provision of voting materials (such as braille ballots) to enable voters with visual and hearing impairments to vote without assistance and, thus protect the secrecy of their vote. Given the history of intimidation and coercion of voters, and electoral violence in Zimbabwe, insufficient information about key aspects of the electoral process have led to misunderstandings and a persistent vulnerability to vote manipulation among these groups. 6