10.3 Accessibility by Marginalized Groups, Especially Those with Hearing and Visual Impairments In addition to the general challenges mentioned in the previous section, the civic and voter education efforts and materials that ZEC and its voter education partners provided were initially deemed as missing traditionally marginalized groups especially the disabled with hearing and visual impairments. People with disabilities staged a demonstration in August 2017 over the lack of universal accessibility to polling centres, which impinged their ease of participation. In September 2017 Senator representing people with disabilities in Parliament, Nyamayabo Mashavakure argued that ZEC ought to ensure that that sign language, voter education material in braille and accessible registration centres, were part of their logistical preparations. While ZEC dealt with the third issue, the first two issues were primarily neglected although then ZEC Chair Rita Makarau acknowledged the requests presented by the senator.33 Despite these submissions and protests, in October 2017 after the BVR Blitz had started, Bensen Banga a disability activist argued that "The campaigns being launched by civic organisations and ZEC are discriminatory in nature as they don't cater for the deaf, dumb and the blind.”34 Although ZEC and Civil Society organisations noted the above challenges, the BVR Blitz processes and civic education programmes fell short of the inclusiveness standard where people with hearing and visual impairments are concerned. 10.4 Role of the Media The media plays a critical role in governance and democratic processes. This role is usually even more pronounced in electoral procedures, through the media's active facilitation of debate and provision of knowledge and information. Throughout this process, the media is expected to conduct its tasks in an independent and professional fashion as well as accurate and impartial manner. While these roles are most pronounced during the campaign periods, the media also plays a critical role in voter registration processes, like the BVR Blitz process. During the BVR process, the media in Zimbabwe in its print and electronic format, as well as social media played the following roles: 1. Provided information about the BVR process to citizens. Most of this information was forwarded to the public in mostly accurate, unbiased, objective fashions, especially given that the Voter Registration process is by character non-competitive and serves to establish the field of eligible participants that electoral competitors will eventually have to win over. This non-competitive character allowed public and private media to be fairly impartial in their reporting on the BVR process, as well as in their information provision. The media played this role through radio and 33 Machamire, F. (2017) PLWDs raise concern over 2018 Vote.https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/09/19/plwds-raiseconcerns-over-2018-vote 34 Open Parly ( 2017) BVR registration: The disabled cry foul. https://openparly.co.zw/2017/10/24/bvr-registration-thedisabled-cry-foul/ 44