A report compiled on the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) voters’ roll for 2018 exposes major flaws in the current voters’ roll. This comes only weeks before Zimbabweans head to the polls for its national elections on July 30, 2018. The report, compiled by a group of experts called Team Pachudu, cites Zimbabwe’s history of shaky election results as the main reason for its analysis of the voters’ roll. The report highlights more than 250 000 records on the voters’ roll that are either duplicated, invalid, statistically improbable or incorrect. This includes more than 8 000 men registered as women, scores of voters registered to an empty field in Harare and at least two Zimbabwean voters who would qualify as the two oldest living people on earth. The discrepancies bring into question the integrity of the voters’ roll for the upcoming elections later this month. The elections are the first after former president Robert Mugabe’s controversial “step down” in November 2017.
The voters’ roll consists of the names, surnames, identity numbers and addresses of more than 5.6 million Zimbabweans eligible to vote in the upcoming elections. It also includes the district in which the person is registered to vote.
But the analysis by Team Pachudu highlights several issues that it claims questions the integrity of the entire roll.
For example, the report indicates that a large number of records do not pass identity number verification checks. Zimbabwean identity numbers contain a built-in means of verification, allowing the validity of an identity number to be calculated. A similar system is used to verify South African identity numbers.
Full Article: Zimbabwean voters roll haunted by doppelgangers, ghosts | News24.