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workmanship and electoral inclined chicanery, the process is littered with evidence of poor
planning, absence of will and general lack of seriousness by the government and the Registrar
General of Voters.
It is important, as a starting point, to note that there haven’t been wide-spread consultative
meetings carried out by the election implementing body, the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC)
through the Registrar General of Voters’ office on the modalities of the exercise, the target group
and the projected figure of those that needed to be registered.
What we have witnessed is a haphazard, apparently rushed process, where even the registration
teams on the ground are not aware of how many people they are supposed to register. Such
evidence of poor planning has resulted in materials running out at some centres while other areas
have no mobile registration teams covering them. Of particular note are the two Midlands towns of
Gweru and Kwekwe. Despite the mobile registration exercise being six weeks old no teams have
been dispatched to cover the two cities.
The exercise has not received enough publicity to an extent, a lot of youths did not know they could
register as voters, apart from getting national identity cards. Youths interviewed by the Zimbabwe
Election Support Network(ZESN) observer team in the Bulawayo Metropolitan province made
startling revelations that they were not aware they could register as voters at these mobile centre
despite the fact that they had visited the registration teams to procure national identity documents.
Voters’ roll
Voters’ rolls are a fundamental component of any voting system. Rolls constitute the official list of
electors and are prima facie evidence of electors’ right to vote. Registration procedures, therefore,
need to strike the right balance between the need to be rigorous to ensure integrity of the rolls, and
the need for flexibility to ensure that peoples’ rights to enrol and vote are protected. Thus, there is a
delicate balance that must be maintained to ensure both the franchise of all voters and to prevent
voter fraud.