The Sunday Mail
Zimbabwe will for the first time use biometric and polling station-based voting systems in 2018 to engender greater transparency and dispute-free elections.
Polling station-based voting is provided for in the amended Electoral Act, and biometric voting tallies with emerging global election standards.
Voters will cast ballots at a particular polling station unlike in the present set-up where they are free to vote at any centre in their wards.
The innovation seeks to prevent multiple-voting, while biometric technology will verify a voter’s identity by analysing his/her physical characteristics such as fingerprints in situ.
Biometrics is the science and technology of measuring and analysing biological data. It is used to uniquely identify individuals by their physical characteristics and involves acquiring data, encryption and data analysis.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is already scouting for a biometric voting systems expert to assist in the transition and has dispatched senior staff to understudy other African countries using this system.
Responding to inquiries from The Sunday Mail, ZEC spokesperson Mr Justin Manyau said: “The organisation has begun a process of sending officials on study tours within the region to learn from our counterparts who have embarked on the technology. ZEC will capacitate its officials through intensified training and development.
“Between January and February 2015, we sent a four-member delegation to Zambia to learn about their biometric voter registration system. We have also started a search for a consultant to assist with the process. The system ensures there is timely capturing and sorting out of data and screening that would help remove any perceptions around vote rigging.”
He added: “Indeed, the Electoral Act provides, in Section 22A, for the establishment of polling station voters’ rolls, but for that to be effected, a lot of groundwork has to be done, chief among this being determining the polling station areas to be served by each polling station.
“. . . This is significantly different from the present system whereby voters can vote at any polling station within the ward. The system is easier to administer as each polling station has a known number of registered voters, hence ZEC can plan better.”
ZEC will consult all interested parties when determining polling station locations. A roll will also be prepared for registered voters in a given area. In addition, each polling station will be given a unique code, incorporating polling station and ward numbers as well as local authority and district codes.
The polling station threshold is expected to be between 500 and 1 500 voters to ensure manageable voter distribution.
The provision on polling stations will become effective once a notice is published in the Government Gazette fixing the date on which Section 22A shall become operational.
The Section reads, in part: “(1) The Commission shall – (a) subject to section 51, determine – (i) the places where polling stations are to be situated within each ward and constituency for the purposes of all elections in terms of this Act; and (ii) the areas within the ward or constituency concerned that are to be served by each such polling station; and (b) subject to Parts IV and V, prepare a voters’ roll for each polling station area determined in terms of paragraph (a)(ii), on which roll shall be entered the names of all registered voters ordinarily resident within the area.
“(2) The Commission shall consult all interested parties when determining the location of polling stations and their areas for the purposes of subsection (1).
“(3) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, where a voters’ roll has been prepared for a polling station area – (a) voters who are registered on that roll shall cast their votes in any election at the polling station for whose area the roll was prepared, unless they are permitted by this Act to vote by post or to cast a special vote.”
