The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has removed over 22 000 dead people from the voters’ rolls in the latest batch of such routine deletions.
The routine removal of 22 656 dead people from the voters’ roll comes ahead of by-elections and harmonised elections, in that order, pencilled for 2022 and 2023.
Speaking at a Friday meeting with civil society organisations, ZEC chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said the meeting was meant to discuss all electoral issues of concern. Said Justice Chigumba:
We discussed issues around polling, deferment of the mobile voter registration exercise and gazetting of the deceased as a precondition for voters’ roll cleaning.
Justice Chigumba appealed to citizens who have lost their relatives to notify ZEC so that the names are removed from the voters roll. She added:
The issue of ghost voters has been misunderstood over the years. Monthly, the Registrar-General Office sends us a list of deceased voters and, members of the public must come forward and tell us about the death of their relatives. That is the only way we can remove deceased voters from voters roll.
Speaking on the postponement of the mobile voter registration exercise which was scheduled for December 6, she said the deferment was meant to allow all eligible stakeholders to acquire national identity cards, which are a requisite for voter registration.
The mobile voter registration has been postponed to February 2022.
More: The Herald
