In an interview with The Zimbabwean last week on the side lines of his presentation on “Preventing Electoral Fraud in Zimbabwe” CSI coordinator Nelson Machemedze said Zimbabwe had four times the number of centenarians on its voters’ roll compared to its former colonial master, Britain.
“We have seen names of people as young as two years old who have appeared on the voters’ roll. It is beyond redemption. It simply has to be scrapped,” said Machemedze.
“Britain with a total population of 60 million and an average life expectancy of more than 30 years longer than Zimbabwe, has less than 10,000 centenarians,” he said.
The roll has been widely criticised by civil society and political parties. Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga of the MDC recently said there was need for an online voter registration to replace the current system which she described as obsolete.
“Cognisant of the trends the world over, we feel that in this technological era, the current system of voter registration in Zimbabwe is nonsensical,” she said.
“While we welcome the introduction of mobile registration points, the MDC feels that the process is unnecessarily cumbersome, which discourages the younger generation from registering as voters.”
Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede has rejected calls to adopt an online voter registration system, arguing that “Online registration does not have adequate checks and balances to detect electoral fraud.”
“There is a strong probability that some people will be involved in the abuse of passwords to register or transfer voters without their consent to deliberately distort and corrupt the voters’ roll,” added Mudede.
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