made subsequently. 8 Upon changes having been made to the delimitation of constituencies, changes were also purportedly automatically made to the voters’ roll. In other instances, although several people had registered to vote, it became apparent that ZEC had not ensured that the names of voters were entered in the proper ward. In extreme cases, family members, residing in the same house, who had used the same address as proof of residence during registration, discovered that their names had been entered in two different wards. As a result, some of the family members were not able to cast their votes and choose a local government representative. A glaring example includes the experiences of two families in Manicaland.9 It is clear from some events that occurred before the 2008 elections that delimitation of constituencies, especially ward boundaries, was done in haste. It remains a puzzle how people residing in the same house, who registered using the same address, could end up with their names appearing on registers of different wards. ZEC did not adequately ensure that ward boundaries were properly and widely advertised during the run-up to the elections: and their efforts to do so were thwarted by the fact that most of these “maps” were barely decipherable, with very poor picture quality.10 Additionally, the maps did not have any road names or visible and identifiable landmarks. Anomalies in delimitation of constituencies was also observed by other external independent observers ahead of the March 2008 elections; for instance the Pan African Parliament election observation team, after reviewing the information contained in the ‘2008 Delimitation Report’ observed the following; o One ward in the Harare North constituency of ward 42 had a block that purportedly had 8450 voters, many of whom were registered under the names of cooperatives. o This was a deserted location that had some residential stands with a few scattered wooden shacks. o 8450 was almost a third of the so-called registered voters from Harare North. 8 Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights Zimbabwe geared for another election? Then and now: 2008 elections in retrospect (2010) p 8. 9 Some of the disenfranchised are members of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. 10 ‘Mashonaland central ward, house of assembly, senate constituency boundaries for the 2008 elections The Herald 24 March 2008 E.8 6|Page