ZEC, Contestant, Vendor and Technical Partners Engagement ZEC engagements with electoral contestants were mainly through the Multi-Party Committees established and through petitions, letters and meetings. ZESN, however, noted the absence of political parties or their agents at other critical processes like the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) tender process, where CSOs were invited to observe. It was not readily evident whether the parties had been asked, especially given ZEC's late dispatch of invitations to CSOs. Engagements with technical assistance groups, vendors, other statutory bodies and government departments followed modalities established in memoranda of understanding between ZEC and the particular groups. During observation of the BVR process, it was noted that some of these engagements especially between ZEC and other statutory bodies and government departments like the Registrar Generals office were not as coordinated as they could be leading to information asymmetries that hampered the BVR process and at times confused the public. A case in point from the BVR Blitz Phase 1 was the lack of communication between ZEC and the Registrar’s office around the use of Mabvuku Tafara sub-district centre for BVR purposes, which ZEC had listed but RG's staff on the ground stated they did not know about. Also, the delays in dealing with cases of electorate intimidation could be put down on the limited coordination between ZEC and other statutory bodies like the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission and the police with each authority said to be conducting its investigations. ZEC-CSOs Engagement ZEC-CSO stakeholder engagement took the following forms 1. Periodic Briefing meetings like the one conducted on 15 December at ZEC Headquarters, a midterm review of the BVR process in November 2017 at Mazvikadei, as well as other BVR Update engagements in July and March 2017 in Harare before the onset of the BVR Blitz. The engagements took the following format: i. General Progress updates – ZEC released close to 60 daily updates on BVR statistics during the initial four phases and almost daily updates during the Mop-Up exercise ii. BVR Roll out updates (e.g. Blitz Extension in December, or BVR Kits tender updates in July and AFIS Tender processes in December) iii. ZEC Voter Education methods and progress iv. Political environment and associated issues. v. Feedback from Multiparty Liaison Committees on political environment related issues. vi. Briefing on key issues and plans (e.g. to compliance with High Court Order on the eligibility of “Aliens” to register and Resolution of Registration Slips shortages in December). 2. Ad hoc meetings to engage on critical emerging issues that needed near real term redress. 3. Letters on issues that needed ZEC’s attention stemming from observations, especially critical incidents and other urgent matters that ZEC could address without the need for face-to-face contact. 4. Statements to and from ZEC on critical issues and recommendations from CSOs. 5. ZEC-CSO Collaborations on activities in the field, e.g. ZEC Official participation at CSO organised 28