ZEC hands over copy of voters roll to CCC

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The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has finally handed over a copy of the electronic voters roll to the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) just over a month before general elections on August 23. ZEC came under fire from the opposition and independent election watch bodies for the opaque manner in which it has so far run the voter registration and verification exercise. Thousands of people found their names missing from the voters’ roll upon verifying via mobile phone platforms. Others noticed their names were moved from the polling stations in which they registered in. For a country with a history of suspicion of electoral fraud, some saw the glitches as part of structural vote rigging.

In March, CCC legislator Allan Markham filed a court application challenging ZEC for access to the electronic voters’ roll. The courts ruled against him because “it was too risky” and in the interest of data protection. But that didn’t stop Zanu PF from sending text messages to registered voters urging them to vote for President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The opposition alleged that Zanu PF had access to the voters’ roll which is why it had the capacity to send the messages.

ZEC will oversee the general elections against the backdrop of a public spat among its commissioners. Seven of the nine commissioners wrote to President Mnangagwa in January, expressing their displeasure about the delimitation report, which drew constituency boundaries to be used during elections.