ZIMBABWE ELECTION SUPPORT NETWORK
Accuracy
Missing Data
For each registrant, the 2018 PVR files should
contain 14 pieces of information: 1) serial number
(unique to the province), 2) surname, 3) forenames,
4) national ID number, 5) gender, 6) date of birth, 7)
address, 8) polling station code, 9) polling station
name, 10) ward, 11) local authority, 12)
constituency, 13) district, and 14) province. The
serial number is purely for record keeping and has no
intrinsic meaning. The next six (surname,
forenames, national ID number, gender, date of
birth, and address) serve to identify the registrant
while the remaining seven identify where the
registrant is assigned to vote. None of this
information is missing for any of the 5,683,936
registrants included in the 2018 PVR.
Too Young or Too Old Registrants
There is one registrant on the 2018 PVR who will
not be 18 by 30 July 2018 (national ID number 48173243-V48 with date of birth of 20 September
2000). There are 944 registrants who are 100 years
old or older.
Potentially Incorrect Date of Birth
18% (1,021,227) of individuals potentially have the
wrong date of birth recorded on their official
documents. These registrants were born during 13
days of the year (01 January, 02 February, 03
March, 04, April, 05 May, 06 June, 07 July, 08
August, 09 September, 10 October, 11 November,
12 December and 25 December) (see Chart 2.1). The
expected percentage of registrants born on these 13
days is 3.5%. Thus, the actual percentage is more
than five times the expected percentage. The number
of registrants born on these 13 select days is 7.5%
only approximately twice the expected percentage.
While this problem with wrong dates of birth is the
responsibility of the Office of the Registrar and not
the ZEC, it makes it more difficult to identify and
remove duplicate records.
Unclean Data
ID numbers fall into 2 categories - those which are
13 characters long (90.3%) and 14 characters long
(9.7%). There are two registrants with ID numbers
that are 15 rather than 14 characters long: namely
63-1025317-H45 and 63-1190341-G07. This is
due to extra spaces at the end of these IDs. ID 631025317-H45 has 101 spaces after the number
suggesting a data entry error and the lack of a
validation check during data entry or storage.
Chart 14: Registrants on the 2018 Preliminary Voters Roll by Day of Birth
125,000
100,000
75,000
50,000
25,000
01/01
01/06
01/11
01/16
01/21
01/26
01/31
02/05
02/10
02/15
02/20
02/25
03/01
03/06
03/11
03/16
03/21
03/26
03/31
04/05
04/10
04/15
04/20
04/25
04/30
05/05
05/10
05/15
05/20
05/25
05/30
06/04
06/09
06/14
06/19
06/24
06/29
07/04
07/09
07/14
07/19
07/24
07/29
08/03
08/08
08/13
08/18
08/23
08/28
09/02
09/07
09/12
09/17
09/22
09/27
10/02
10/07
10/12
10/17
10/22
10/27
11/01
11/06
11/11
11/16
11/21
11/26
12/01
12/06
12/11
12/16
12/21
12/26
12/31
0
Day Born (Month/Day)
Source: Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)
26
FINAL REPORT OF THE 2018 VOTERS' ROLL AUDIT
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