THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has refuted allegations that it secretly transferred voters from their previous polling stations to disenfranchise them.
Data analysts, Team Pachedu, had accused Zec of secretly moving urban voters from their previous polling stations resulting in chaos on polling day.
“We received complaints on voting day from Marondera voters after Zec had secretly moved at least 560 voters from Mushakata to Chitanda polling station,” the group said.
Team Pachedu maintained its accusations in a follow-up interview with NewsDay yesterday.
“Well this was after delimitation,“ the data analysts said.
Zec chief elections officer, Utloile Silaigwana, said constituency boundaries were changed during the delimitation exercise resulting in the movement of voters from their previous polling stations.
“It’s not unusual for people to move from one polling station to another. So let’s not sensationalise issues,” Silaigwana said.
“You know very well that boundaries change because of delimitation, and people are not stones; they move. If you change your address, your polling station is likely to change. It depends on factors A, B, C and D.
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“After delimitation, we did the inspection of the voters roll, where people checked if they were at the right polling stations according to the addresses they gave.
“It’s an exercise that we did, completed and closed the voters roll for the purposes of elections. People were given the opportunity to inspect their names and polling stations.”
Team Pachedu also alleged that Zec continued to add people to the voters roll even after legally closing it on June 2.
"We identified these voters in areas like Bikita (wards 3 and 27) , Hurungwe (wards 2, 19 and 20)," it said.
But Silaigwana said: "We have cases of people saying I registered, but they registered when the voters roll had closed for the August 23 and 24 elections.
“Those people were no longer eligible for this particular election, but that did not deny anyone the right to register. They will still be on the voters roll but not the one used for the elections. You will find your name in the next voters roll."
Meanwhile, presidential results are not appearing on Zec’s website since they were pulled down on Tuesday.
Emmerson Mnangagwa emerged the winner with 52,6% against Citizens Coalition for Change leader Nelson Chamisa’s 44%.
