for the by-election such as the distribution of vital election materials and personnel in Nkulumane constituency. For instance if adequate resources were available ZEC would have doubled the number of voter educators that it deployed, raising the number from two to four per two polling areas. Each polling station would have been covered by 2 voter educators. o Voter Education Voter Education is prescribed by law in Section 239 of the Constitution which gives ZEC the primary mandate of conducting and supervising voter education. Part IXA of the Electoral Act (sections 40A to 40F) allows organisations other than ZEC to conduct Voter Education subject to the following restrictions; (a) Organisations can only engage in voter education at the invitation of the Commission. (b) Organisations are required to print and use information that is provided for by the Commission. Section 40D in particular outlines the time frames during which voter education is to be conducted by authorised persons, which is no later than a week after the proclamation of an election. Voter education in Nkulumane Constituency was conducted in three distinct phases namely; (a) pre-nomination Voter Education, (b) Voter Education for Registration and (c) pre-polling voter education. ZEC’s road map for Nkulumane by election scheduled voter education as follows; Voter education for nomination was held from 30 October to 3 November 2015, voter education for registration 7-16 November, voter education for inspection 29 November to 3 December and pre polling voter education from 9 – 13 December 2015. ZESN was invited to participate in the Commission’s voter education programme, however due to limited funding ZESN was only able to participate in two of the four voter education programs. ZESN participated in the voter education for registration and pre-polling. During these exercises ZESN deployed four voter educators to complement the work of the much larger ZEC team. The four ZESN voter educators moved in pairs but concentrated mainly on business centres, shopping complexes, small scale industries, churches, workshops, flea markets, vendors’ markets, schools, garages, taxi ranks and termini, beer halls, market gardens, police camps and clinics as well as people on the streets. Both ZEC and ZESN voter educators distributed Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials. ZESN distributed 1,700 flyers in Ndebele (900) and English (800), 1000 Posters in English and Ndebele (500 each). The ZESN team interacted and reached over 5,000 people throughout the 3 wards in a period of four days. Voter education for registration was carried out from 13 – 16 November 2015. During this period educators from both ZEC and ZESN encouraged residents to go and register at the 30 static centres that had been established in the wards by the ZEC and/or to look out for mobile registration teams that were roving from household to household in all the three wards. 11 | P a g e