certificates to check whether they are being abused. This is particularly so because in a recent statement at one of his rallies, the President seemed to imply that persons who register after 14 February would be allowed to vote. He exhorted ZANU PF supporters to continue to register to vote in large numbers even though the voters' roll had been closed. The closing of the voters' roll does not mean the roll was closed to all people of the required age. Even if they had turned 18 yesterday, they could still register to vote. He said people were still free to register as their names would be put on the supplementary voters' roll. It should be noted that in the 2002 Presidential election President Mugabe won by a margin of 400 000 votes. This was approximately the same number of voters on the supplementary voters' roll, which voters were able to vote in that election. (The date for the closing of the supplementary voters' roll was extended on a number of occasions and the supplementary roll was never made public.) Under section 55 of the 2007 Electoral Act police officers were not be allowed into polling stations except to vote; this amended provision was intended to allay fears, expressed in previous elections, that the police were taking over the voting process and that their presence inside the polling stations could be intimidatory. This provision required police officers to remain at least 100 metres from polling stations. However, under presidential regulations passed only 11 days before the elections, this has been completely reversed and police officers are now permitted to enter polling stations. The 2007 Act also precluded police officers from being involved in the process of assisting voters who required such assistance to cast their ballots. Again this has been completely reversed and now police officers are allowed to be involved in this process. This again could well be very intimidatory for voters needing assistance. Another area of concern is that of postal voting. The opposition pleas to allow postal voting by the millions of Zimbabweans outside the country fell on deaf ears. Postal votes can still only be cast in advance of polling day by diplomats outside the country and members of the police and army that will be on duty outside their constituencies on polling day. The privacy of the ballot could be compromised by police officers and soldiers having to cast their vote in the presence of their commanders. The allocation of these postal votes to wards and constituencies must be fair and transparent. The numbers of polling stations that will operate in urban centres will be totally inadequate to allow all urban voters to cast their ballots on the election day. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) has complained that the distribution of polling stations is designed to give the ruling party an unfair electoral advantage. In urban centres where the opposition is strongly supported there are far too few polling stations whereas in rural areas where the ruling party has its strongest support, there are plentiful polling stations. It points out that in Harare there will be 379 polling stations for about 760 000 registered voters which is an average of about 2022 voters per polling station. On polling day, stations will be 16