the substitution of, "the Commission." Question marks have previously been raised on the
role of the Registrar General in election related processes. His credibility and neutrality has
largely been tainted by his alleged bias to one party. The failure to furnish the voters’ roll in
2013 despite a court order directing him to do so, only served to confirm the suspicions on
the role he played in elections.
Clause 4
The clause seeks to
repeal subsection 3,4 and
5 of Section 36B of the
electoral Act by requiring
every eligible voter to
register to vote.
By deleting any reference to his office and substituting it with the word, ‘Commission’ the
act brings the provision into conformity with the Constitution which gives the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission the sole mandate to run elections, which is progressive.
This amendment seeks to align the electoral provisions with the new voter registration
system-the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) system. The clause introduces the
requirement that every eligible voter (new and old) must register/re-register as a voter,
using the new biometric-based system. This is a departure from the previous provisions
where those already on the voters’ roll did not need to re-register. Every eligible must
register whether as new voters or returning voters to enable ZEC to produce an entirely
new voters’ roll based on the biometric voter registration system.
This is progressive given the multiple problems and inaccuracies of the old voters’ roll.
ZESN has previously highlighted the benefits of the BVR system based on comparative
experiences gleaned from other jurisdictions where the system has been used. If deployed
properly the BVR system can address some common problems from previous election
processes such as the duplication of names and errors to the voters’ rolls as well as
elimination of the phenomenon of double voting and ghost voting cases.
The amendment made by clause 4 is deemed to have taken effect on the 14th of September
2017. This has been done to retrospectively legalise the voter registration that started on
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AN ANALYSIS OF THE ELECTORAL AMENDMENT BILL ©ZESN 2017