Common for All Elections Results were first established at polling station level and the protocol was given to party agents and posted outside (Sections 64, 1, d1 and e and 37C, 4 a and b). Then the ward protocol was set up with one line for each polling station result (Section 65, 3 and S.I. 87). The protocol should be given to agents and observers and posted outside (Section 65, 6, a and b). Local Councils For the local council elections it was unclear who should announce the results. The previous Section 130 Declaration and publication of result of election, which was under the local election chapter, had been repealed and replaced by a section on run-offs for the parliamentary elections. The declaration of the ward results for the local councils seemed to be missing in the Act. The ZEC Manual on Transmission and Collation of Results, Harmonised Elections 2013, Section 4.2 stated that “Each ward collation centre will then announce the result of this election”, which was consistent with the system applied to the other elections. The National Assembly The ward results for the National Assembly (NA) were sent to the constituencies (210), where a protocol similar to the ward protocol was compiled. That report added explicitly the ward results up to constituency level. For the National Assembly constituencies the official results were announced at this level (Sections 66, 1 and 37C, 4, c, ii). The protocols from the constituencies were sent to the provincial level. The protocols tabulated the constituency results per party (Sections 65B, 3 and 4 and 37C, 4, e, i). The results were compiled to be used in the List PR election for NA, the Senate and the province councils. The National Assembly, Senate and province council List PR results were declared at this level (Sections 45 I and 65B, 3, b and 37C, 4, e, ii).Then all results were sent to the national level (Section 65 B, 5). However, for the National Assembly results, the ward returns including the polling station results were also sent directly from the ward to the national level, in accordance with Section 37C, 4, b, and could be used for scrutiny at the central level. The Presidential Elections The protocols for the wards were submitted to the constituency level where a protocol was compiled in accordance with Section 110, 3, a, i: “record on the constituency return the votes obtained by each candidate and the number of rejected ballot papers in such a manner that the results of the count for each polling station are shown on the return”. In other words, the results should be broken down by polling station. However, Section 37C, 4, c, i stated that this report was broken down by ward results only, and S.I. 87 (10B) gave 16 a design by wards only. The manual Section 2.3 also only mentions that this protocol was by wards. This was an unfortunate inconsistency, but it was most likely that Section 110, 3, a, i actually was a drafting mistake. The constituency reports were posted outside the building, and the party agents were invited to inspect and sign them but they were not entitled to a copy (Section 110, 3, a, ii and iii). The constituency reports were sent to the Chief Election Officer (Section 110, 3, a, iii), and to the province level (Section 37C, 4, d, ii and S.I. 87), where a report summarising each constituency was compiled. The province report was only mentioned in Section 37C and not in Section 110,3. However, for the presidential results, the ward returns including the polling station results were also sent directly from the ward to the national level, in accordance with Section 37C, 4, b, which meant that polling station results are available at national level. The polling station results should be used for the scrutinising of the results coming from the constituencies at the national level, in accordance with Section 37C, 4, f, ii. The Chief Election Officer compiled a report and the Chief Election Commissioner declared the result (110, 3, f). Conclusion All information was in principle available to the public but only by checking at several levels and in a large number of places. In order to secure full transparency the ZEC should publish the whole tabulation from polling station level to constituencies, provinces and national level. In particular the figures used for the List PR elections at province level were never published. There seemed to be a mistake in the distribution of seats in Bulawayo, which could not be verified because the figures were not made available. 5.6 The Commission and its Secretariat The Chief Elections Officer is mentioned in the law, in particular in the reporting of the results.10 Giving the Chief Elections Officer a mandate in the act independently of the mandate of the ZEC can cause friction and create unclear command lines. The ZEC should be able to delegate powers and withdraw such delegation as they find most appropriate since they have the ultimate responsibility for conducting correct elections. It would therefore be better if the law only defined the role of the ZEC, who could chose to delegate powers to the Chief Election Officer. In some sections the Chief Election Officer’s role in announcing the results had been removed, such as in Section 110, (3) (f) on the announcement of the presidential results, but the Chief Election Officer was still mentioned in Section 67 (3) and Section 68, regarding the transmission of information to 10 E.g. Sections 67, 68, 70, 110. 17