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Justice Rita Makarau

Oliver Kazunga Senior Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is partnering tertiary institutions to draw up a new voters’ roll that will be polling station specific. ZEC chairperson Justice Rita Makarau yesterday said a pilot project to come up with the roll that ensures a voter uses a specific polling station will be employed during the December 19 Nkulumane constituency by-election in Bulawayo.

The seat fell vacant following the death of MDC-T legislator Thamsanqa Mahlangu in October. Makarau said the polling station specific voters’ register would spread to the rest of the country next year. She said it was easy to manage in terms of allowing the electoral commission to regularly inspect the roll to remove ineligible people such as those that would have died.

ZEC has been using a voters’ roll that encompasses a whole constituency where voters could cast their ballots at any station within their constituencies. The roll was not independent of Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede’s office.

In coming up with the new voters’ roll, Justice Makarau said tertiary institutions and other government departments that offer geographical surveys would provide ZEC with technical expertise such as Geographical Information System (GIS) and cartography.

“Initially, we’ve partnered Lupane State University to come up with a polling station specific voters’ register for the Nkulumane National Assembly by-election. Lupane State University will provide us with technical expertise,” she said.

GIS is software designed to capture, manage, analyse, and display all forms of geographically referenced information. The software allows experts to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualise the world in ways that reveal relationships, patterns and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts.

“In coming up with polling station specific voters’ register, we’re not only working with institutions of higher learning such as universities and polytechnic colleges but even the government departments that offer geographical surveys.

“We’re hoping that early next year, we would have partnered with the institutions to come up with a polling station specific voters’ register for the country. We’re waiting for the budgetary allocation for the exercise from the government,” said Justice Makarau.

She said the polling station specific voters’ register allows voters to know their respective polling station when voting. “The polling station specific voters’ register is voter friendly as the electorate will be able to know to which polling station they’re supposed to go to cast their ballots.

“In addition, the polling station specific voters’ register is easy to manage as it’ll be containing fewer numbers of registered voters per polling station than the current voters’ register. “The polling station specific voters’ registers will have a minimum of 500 voters and not more than 1,500,” Justice Makarau said.

The present voters roll, she said, would be used as a benchmark in identifying the number of registered voters in a given constituency. According to ZEC, there were 6,4 million eligible voters in 2013.