The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) says it will put measures to restrict access to the voter’s roll to individuals and or organisations that would have been approved by the commission to protect it against possible tampering.
In a statement seen by Pindula News, ZEC spokesperson commissioner Jasper Mangwana said the commission would avail the electronic voters roll on a platform only accessible to those approved by the commission.
Reads the statement titled: Enhancing Security of the Voters Roll posted on Twitter on Monday:
Enhancing Security of the Voters Roll Sec 20 of the Electoral Act stipulates that @ZECzim shall maintain a voters roll in printed or electronic form for each polling area. The voters roll shall contain names, dob, ID #, sex, address.
@ZECzim has always availed this voters roll on a CD in a format,analyzable and searchable format. The voters roll shall be kept at all ZEC office for public inspection, free of charge, during ordinary working hours by individuals and they may make written notes if need be.
@ZECzim has provided the USSD and bvrinspection portal platforms to easy inspection by individuals. Sec 21(7) Where a voters roll is provided in electronic format , it should be 1. in a format that it may not be altered.
@ZECzim may provide reasonable conditions on the provision of the voters roll to prevent it from being commercialised or used for other purposes unconnected to elections.
Technology has moved,CD format which was issued cld be altered and duplicated so many times causing alarm and despondency to the electorate hence the need to enhance security & introduce a platform only for those approved to access the VR by @ZECzim that cannot be altered.
There are cases of the voters roll being commercialized by individuals and organizations which has resulted in some cases of identity theft and fraud hence the need to enhance the security of this public electronic document.
Publication of the 2018 voters roll on the internet on a UK website exposing registered voters personal info to the world in 2018 caused problems with stakeholders hence the need to enhance the security of the voters roll.
We need to align the Electoral Act to the Cyber Security and Data Protection Act , the region and continent members have made sure they only avail necessary information that is not personal,nor private which may put registered voters and their families in danger.
Other countries in SADC provide names, surnames, polling stations, sex for public inspection and only after consent from the owner can the other information like ID # and address be made available to anyone other than the owner of the information.
@ZECzim is availing the voters roll in printed copy at the gazetted costs &also in electronic portal format where only authorized people will search and analyse the document and cannot make changes or endanger the registered voters by publishing private information online.
Election stakeholders including watchdogs and the opposition have been pushing the electoral body to make the voters’ roll public for scrutiny.
Some watchdogs allege that there are several anomalies in the voters’ roll adding that ZEC is conniving with the ruling ZANU PF to manipulate the 2023 elections in favour of the ruling party.