sations that wish to conduct programmes of voter education: the Commission may require a civic organisation to furnish it with copies of all the proposed voter education materials; the materials must be adequate and not misleading or biased in favour of any political party; and only the Commission may receive foreign funds for voter education, although it may distribute these funds to other organisations involved in the provision of voter education; the persons providing voter education must be citizens or permanent residents, domiciled in the country and they must, operate through an organisation with a specific mandate to provide voter education. The Amendment Bill contains further provisions allowing the Commission to control voter education by other organisations. The Commission is empowered to close down a voter education programme being conducted by a civic organisation if it considers the organisation is providing materially false or incorrect information that is unfairly biased in favour or against a contesting political party, and the programme therefore is likely to prevent a substantial number of voters from making an informed choice in an election. Before closing down a programme the Commission must give the affected organisation an adequate opportunity to make representations in the matter. Although there must obviously be controls to prevent the dissemination of erroneous, misleading and biased voter education materials, the capacity of the Commission to scrutinise proposed voter education within a reasonable period of time is doubtful. If it insists on perusing all such materials there may be inordinate delays in the implementation of such programmes to the detriment of the electorate. It should be noted that before the 2005 parliamentary elections civic groups alleged that the Electoral Commission gave them only two weeks to carry out voter education programmes throughout the country. For voter education to fulfil its role as an essential exercise in strengthening participatory democracy, it is essential that civil society is enabled to conduct effective nation-wide voter education. The Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC Countries Principles state that “civil society capacity, such as NGOs, CBOs, the faith based organisations and other institutions should harness and support civic and voter education to ensure an effective distribution through the country.” The Amendment Bill retains the prohibition against civic organisations receiving any foreign funding for their voter education programmes. Given the current parlous state of the economy, it is very difficult for civic organisations to garner enough finance locally to conduct comprehensive voter education programmes, and they cannot base their plans on the possibility that they may receive some funds from the Commission. The imposition of a ban on receiving outside funding is thus unreasonable and unjustifiable. A better way of approaching voter education would be for the Electoral Commission to establish joint structures with civil society to plan and implement a shared voter education strategy. Voter education providers could then be accredited and required to operate within the framework of an agreed Code of Conduct. The South African experience in this regard is instructive. Polling The Constitution requires presidential, parliamentary and local authority elections to be held simultaneously,23 and the Bill makes the necessary amendments to the Electoral Act. 24 It may not be a good idea to hold all these elections together. Voters will be faced with four separate 23 Sections 28(3) and 58(1) of the Constitution. 24 See clause 29 of the Bill. 13