ZEC gives relief to special voters

their votes at the close of polling on Monday midnight creating anxiety on what recourse they would have from electoral authorities.

In a statement last night, Justice Makarau said special voting held between July 14 and 15 2013 left a lot of people unable to cast their votes owing to logistical challenges.
She said a substantial number of members of the disciplined forces and ZEC electoral officers were unable to cast votes because their ballot papers did not reach their voting centres before the close of special polling or had failed to reach the centres altogether.

“This means that all the persons who were entitled to use the special vote were deprived of their right to vote in the harmonised elections due to the logistical challenges that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission experienced in the printing of ballot papers,” said Justice Makarau.

“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will therefore ensure that all persons who were deprived of the opportunity to vote between 14 and 15 July 2013 will be able to vote on 31 July 2013 when the rest of the electorate votes.

“To this end, only the names of those who actually cast ballots during the special vote will be deleted from the ward voters’ rolls that will be used for polling on 31 July 2013.

“ Lists of those officers who voted on 14 and 15 July 2013 and those who failed to cast their ballots will be open for public inspection at the offices of the Chief Elections Officer.”

Thousands of police officers and civil servants gathered at various voting centres yesterday in anticipation that they would be allowed to cast their votes. More than 200 police officers gathered at Town House in central Harare by yesterday mid-morning when The Herald visited the civic centre.

They spent most of their time seated waiting to be told what would be the next course of action and to hear if there was any recourse for their plight. At around 11am, their superiors arrived and directed that their names be taken down for further enquiries to find out what could be done. The previous night anti-riot had to be called at Town House to quell restless police details who tried to force their way after realising that the midnight deadline was fast approaching before they could cast their votes.

They were frustrated at the slow distribution of ballot papers.

Government created special voting platform to afford those who would be deployed on normal voting day to cast their votes before they leave to their respective centres.
ZEC said it issued out 120 000 applications for special voting and only 87 000 were returned, the bulk of which were from the police force.

Meanwhile, voting closed at midnight Monday with at least 3 000 people having cast their special vote in Mashonaland West province out of an expected 6 000.

ZEC provincial elections manager Mr Kenneth Kwaramba said the electoral body cleared everyone who was in the queue at midnight in line with electoral laws.
He said some of the prospective voters were turned away for not having been in the voters’ roll while others left without voting after having spent a long time in queues.

He said all material has been collected from the various polling stations and was awaiting transportation to the headquarters in Harare.
“We had enough vehicles, manpower and material to cover even the harmonised elections. As we speak every ballot has been accounted for and we now have to transport the material to our head office,” he said.

Out of the 28 polling stations in the province, the highest number of voters were recorded at Jameson High School in Kadoma and Cooksey Memorial Hall in Chinhoyi with 424 and 394 voters respectively.