54 IRI/NDI Zimbabwe International Election Observation Mission Final Report Adopt more transparent and consultative procedures to build public trust in the ZEC and ensure the ZEC is widely perceived to be a credible institution. The ZEC should employ a proactive communications strategy to provide critical information to stakeholders and that reinforces public confidence in its impartiality throughout the electoral process. To build public confidence, the ZEC should also go beyond a “legalistic” approach to sharing information with political parties and other groups. While the law does not require specific actions, the ZEC should concern itself with building public confidence in its impartiality through provision of timely and accurate public communication about the ZEC’s work, and strengthen its capacity to anticipate and rapidly respond to concerns and issues as they arise. Amend the Political Parties (Finance) Act to promote transparency in political party financing. This includes regulations on reporting and expenditures and that are in line with international conventions.83 Universal Suffrage Complete boundary delimitation exercise no less than one year prior to the next election. According to the 2013 Constitution, no constituency should have more than 20 percent variation in registered voters. To ensure inclusive consultation to increase public confidence in the boundary delimitation process, an independent, ad hoc, or permanent commission in charge of drawing the electoral constituency boundaries could be established. Engage in regular cleaning and deduplication of the voter roll. In alignment with international best practices that ensure the principle of universal suffrage,84 the ZEC should amend its regulations for voter registration and undertake routine deduplication and data cleaning exercises for the existing voters roll to eliminate the problems identified by the audits completed before the July elections, including repeated addresses, similar ID numbers, and similar data for two different voters. Publish preliminary and final voters roll in an analyzable format that allows for an independent audit and verification in a timely manner. The ZEC should establish clear timelines for the production and distribution of the preliminary and final voter rolls, which provide meaningful opportunities for a serious audit of the quality of the voters list and which should be made available prior to the nominations process. The ZEC should release a provisional voter roll during the inspection process in an electronic analyzable format and continue to enhance citizenaccess to the inspection process through more localized inspection centers or list of registered voters at specific polling stations. Implement steps to facilitate identification of polling stations on Election Day. In order to ensure voters can easily and quickly identify, queue, and vote at the correct polling or subpolling station, the ZEC should post the voter roll specific to each polling and sub-polling station in an accessible location, including outside of the polling station on Election Day, for easy voter reference. The posting of the voter roll will mitigate unnecessary confusion, frustration, and high voter rejection rates on Election Day, particularly in urban areas with polling stations very near each other or where sub-polling stations are present. 83 ICCPR GC 25, 19; UNCAC Article 7.3; ACHPR Articles 13(2) and (3); SADC Political Forum, Norms and Standards for Elections in the SADC Region Part 3 (6). 84 UDHR Article 21 (3); ICCPR Article 25 GC 25 (b)