ZIMBABWE ELECTION SUPPORT NETWORK SPECIAL VOTING PROCEDURES: WHICH WAY FOR ZIMBABWE? Introduction Voting is every citizen’s right. No eligible national citizen should be deprived of registration or the right to vote as a result of being homeless, ill, out of the country, in prison, etc. Yet, under Zimbabwe’s electoral laws only citizens outside their home constituencies on official national duty can cast postal votes, a requirement that is widely viewed as disenfranchising more than three million Zimbabweans living abroad. In view of elections due in 2011, concerted effort should be taken to correct this constitutional loophole. Special voting procedures must be put in place to allow every Zimbabwean in whatever circumstances to exercise his right to franchise. Special voting procedures are frameworks whereby electors are allowed to vote in locations other than their designated polling stations, hence “absentee voting”. Special Voting Procedures Special voting facilities take various forms. There is mobile voting where polling officials transport a mobile ballot box to voters who cannot attend their designated polling station. For example, ill or elderly voters can cast their ballot at home or a hospital. Mobile voting usually takes place on voting day, but may also happen in advance. Postal voting is where voters cast their ballots by post in advance on the day of elections. Early voting is whereby voters [such as election officials or security personnel] who are unable to attend their designated polling stations on the day of elections are allowed to cast their ballots early. Prison-voting is where prisoners who retain suffrage cast their ballots at special polling stations within the prison. Military voting is where members of the armed forces vote at a designated local civilian polling station or in their barracks. Special Voting procedures experienced problems relating to lack of secrecy in postal voting [on ballots], alleged corrupt practice of postal voting by armed forces, lack of ZEC oversight over postal voting process, no transparency and accountability for postal voting, missing measures against double voting on E-Day, no special provisions for bedridden or handicapped. Out-of-country voting is where expatriate citizens entitled to suffrage cast their ballots at special polling stations, often at their country’s embassy or by post. Yet this facility is not extended to the 3 million Zimbabweans who are currently in diaspora. Currently Zimbabweans are merely encouraged to travel to the country during the election periods. Even the “window of opportunity” that has come with the signing of the Global Political Agreement on 15th September 2008 is yet to be exploited to re-engage the diaspora community. The socioeconomic impasse saw most Zimbabweans moving out of the country and seeking more or less permanent settlements in countries such as South Africa, Botswana, UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, among other places all over the world. Global Scenarios Yet across the world, non-resident citizens are now being afforded the right to vote, signaling a significant departure from the historical notion of a territorially defined political community. It recognizes the need to reassess the concept of citizenship in light of the increasing mobility of people. A 2007 study by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance [IDEA] and the International Foundation for Election Systems [IFES] which surveyed external voting practices in 214 countries and territories found that of the 214 countries and related territories surveyed have legal provisions allowing non-resident citizens to cast a vote from abroad. The USA has since 1975 through the Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Rights Act, allowed its citizens living outside the country to actively participate in its elections. In Britain, the People Act of 1985 extended the right to vote in parliamentary elections to non-resident British citizens residing abroad. In Botswana, external voting is a

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