be allowed to vote, but since they were deprived of their voting right due to technical problems outside their control the ZEC argued that they should be allowed to vote on election day. They also urged the court to put in place conditions to ensure that those who had already voted could not vote again, when those who were left out of the process were afforded an opportunity to vote. They argued that “[t]he mechanism for doing so is provided for in terms of Section 81 D(3) of the Electoral Act.”15 The article states that “The Chief Elections Officer shall ensure that the voters roll supplied to each ward centre for the purposes of the election has a line drawn through every voter in the ward who has been authorised to cast a special vote and shall inscribe opposite that person’s name the letters “S.V.”. The Constitutional Court, despite opposition from MDC-T, granted ZEC’s application on Friday 26 July. This followed a hearing where MDC-T’s lawyer referred to evidence, in an affidavit by MDC-T deputy chairperson Morgan Komichi, of the discovery of special ballot papers in a dustbin near the ZEC National Command Centre by persons unknown.16 The MDC-T filed a Constitutional Court application on 26 July to nullify the whole of the special voting exercise conducted on July 14th and 15th. Their case was based on the concessions made by ZEC, when seeking an extension of the voting, that the special voting was marred by technical and administrative flaws. According to The Herald of 31 July, MDC-T withdrew the application which had been scheduled for a hearing on 30 July. The main objection to letting those who were registered for special voting vote on election day was the fear that some of those who actually had voted during the special voting would vote again on election day. The bill gazetted by government on 3 January 2014 with amendments to the Electoral Act has reversed the possibilities for special voting all together and instead added security personnel on duty on election day on the list of those who can cast a postal ballot. Postal voting is a less transparent process than voting in person so it is not certain that this will reduce the risks of fraud or allegations of fraud. 9 The Capacity of Polling Stations On 10 July the ZEC published a list of 9,670 polling stations. Then on 28 July they published a new list in The Standard increasing the number with 65 polling stations. This list was also published on election day.17 Province Number of registered voters 9 July 2013 Number of polling stations according to the final list 28 July 2013 Average number of voters per polling station 28 July 2013 Average voters per polling station in 2008 Bulawayo 310,390 392 792 1,331 Harare 798,264 875 912 1,087 Manicaland Mashonaland Central Mashonaland East 798,677 1,303 613 681 568,600 822 692 637 710,323 1,047 678 628 Mashonaland West 656,036 1,303 503 591 Masvingo 769,263 1,238 621 612 Matabeleland North 383,267 784 489 485 Matabeleland South 371,143 623 596 567 821,040 1,348 609 570 6,187,003 9,735 636 660 Midlands Total Table 3: The Development of number of polling stations compared to registered voters in 2013 and 2008. In 2008 a total of 8,998 polling stations were used. 10 Candidate Agents and Observers 10.1 Party agents All parties and candidates had the right to have representatives in the polling stations. There were no reports of agents not being let into the polling stations or of difficulties in accrediting party agents. 10.2 Observers 15 Justice Makarao to The Herald on 24 July 2013. 16 This led to the arrest of Mr Komichi at his home in the early hours of Sunday 28 July and he was taken to Harare Central Police Station, accused of breaking the election law. He was charged of fraud when he was claiming he had found the ballots in a bin, and on interfering with ballot papers. He was refused bail a number of times and was still in jail on 25 October 2013, when the trial was still on-going. 30 Civil society organisations could be accredited as domestic observers. At earlier elections some organisations had difficulties getting accredited but this time there were no reports of unfair application of the rules. The accreditation had opened in all provinces so unnecessary travelling to Harare was not required any more. 17 ZESN state in their report that the addition came after the 28 July publication, but it actually came on 28 July. 31