#ElectionsZW: Voter registration blitz is not for by-elections says ZEC

Zimbabweans who registered during the voter registration blitz phase 1 will not vote in the impending by-elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has revealed.

Political parties and candidates are currently on the ground urging their supporters and Zimbabweans, in general, to register to vote in order to boost their numbers.

Various civic society organisations also splashed huge sums of money coming up with voter registration messages ahead of the by-elections

However, according to ZEC, all these people will not vote on the 26^th of March as the voters rolls for the by-elections was closed long back.

Voters roll for Parliamentary elections closes two days after nomination court, meaning that it was closed on the 28^th of January.

The one for local authority seats closes the day a vacancy was announced.

Addressing the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, ZEC chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana said the blitz is for the purposes of delimitation exercise.

‘’It should be noted that this mobile voter registration exercise is not meant for the upcoming by-elections as the voters rolls are already closed for that purpose but for the delimitation exercise expected to be conducted after the national census,’’ he said.

The ZEC chief elections officer also took the opportunity to speak on the disparity between people who registered and those on voters roll.

He said the anomaly was due to the offline system that they are using to register people.

‘’It is important for stakeholders to note that when one has gone through the voter registration process and given a slip, it does not mean that they are already on the voters roll.

‘’The BVR machines are not online hence data recorded by individual machines in the field is collated manually and uploaded at district centres for online transmission to the AFIS to remove duplicates. The centres are then incorporated on the national voters roll. ‘’This means that voter registration statistics recorded in the field do not necessarily reflect the actual entries that are finally added to the voters roll,’’ he said.

#ElectionsZW: Voter registration blitz is not for by-elections says ZEC