…more women register to vote than men
Fredrick Moyo
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) mobile voter registration blitz that commenced on February 1 2022 took off to a slow start with Masvingo province recording only 1015 first time voter in the first week of the exercise.
ZEC Deputy Provincial Election Officer (PEO) Maxwell Ncube confirmed that a total number of 1015 came and registered to vote in all the 287 registration centres in the province during the first week, before encouraging people to take advantage of the on-going blitz and register to vote.
“On the ongoing blitz, we have initial registers of 1015 with 496 males and 519 females and we have also recorded 833 transfers with 417 males and 416 females. We also have 128 people who were turned away, 61 males and 67 females. These were turned away because some had no proof of residence, while others had no national Identification Cards (IDs) as well as having defaced IDs while some were underage.
“We are encouraging people that have not yet registered to take advantage of this and register to vote. With the teams that are in the field, we will try to cover every ward and in some wards there are three or four centres depending with how big the ward is,” said Ncube.
He also said that those who were turned away due to failure to provide national Identification Cards and proof of residence should visit the Registrar’s office and get necessary documents needed for the registration exercise.
“We are encouraging those who were turned away because of national identification cards to visit the Registrar’s office so that they come and register. “If the issue is of proof of residence, Chiefs are allowed to write a letter that proves the person belongs to a particular ward or constituency.
“If they miss the first phase opportunity because of those reasons, they should use the second phase in April, the teams will be in their respective constituencies and wards till the end of the exercise,” Ncube said.
He said they are in the process of deploying voter registration teams with Commissioners of Oaths so that people who want to register would not be turned away.
“Right now we are trying to make sure that the teams we deploy should have a Commissioner of Oaths. We have applied to the authorities that every team should have such personnel so that if it happens that a person comes without proof of residence, he/she will be helped at the registration centre,” said Ncube.
He also added that from the BVR Kits ZEC deployed to 210 constituencies in the country, Masvingo province received 93 BVR kits that they deployed to the 26 teams that are on the ground to assist in the ongoing voter registration blitz.
“As Masvingo province, we received 94 BVR Kits that we deployed to every team on the ground and each team have three BVR kits. In the province we have 26 teams and this translates that 78 kits are in the field as we speak,” added Ncube.
The mobile registration exercise is meant to assist people in marginalised areas, those who have to walk long distances to access ZEC offices to register to vote.
