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Voters Roll Audit - Preliminary roll - 2005 General Elections
RW (Topper) Whitehead, Freezim Support Group
January 23, 2005

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To do an effective analysis of the roll and electoral results it is necessary to have the data in electronic format (as is the form that the RG now keeps the data) so that computers can be programmed to eliminate the time consuming checks and crosschecks that are required in an analysis. With the RG's refusal to release the roll in such form and supported by obscure judgements² from the Supreme Court it became necessary for the digitisation of the roll by electronic means, but first the paper copy had to be obtained.

It took nearly two years and countless requests to obtain a roll from the RG in spite of the fact that the Law is very specific in that the roll must be readily and freely available to any person.

A summary of the roll was done⁴ that indicated incomprehensible voting registration patterns that are in direct conflict with the 2002 Census⁵ and highlighted in a report⁶ by F Matarise of the University of Zimbabwe.

Scanning and computer equipment was obtained and digitisation started in November 2004.

To date 7 constituencies have been digitised and 2 constituencies analysed.

The "sample" analysed to date is considered statistically representative by international standards. It is through detailed data and statistical analysis of these rolls that the following key findings are presented based on extrapolation:

Over 2 million of the 5,6 million names registered as voters are suspect. Removing these from the roll results in the recently completed delimitation report being highly suspect.

Deceased persons remaining on the roll extrapolated to over 800 000.
Over 300 000 duplicate names exist on the roll.
Over 900 000 names of people appearing on the roll where found to no longer reside at the registered address and as a consequence significantly effect the delimitation process.

The following table gives the extent of "damage" extrapolated from the sample analysed to date and that can be expected to be substantiated when the rest of the digitisation and analysis is completed.

• A summary of the roll was made by counting the number of voters in each constituency and the results tabulated and compared with previous data from past elections.⁷
• The roll as received was found to have been printed on plain white paper with very feint print (obviously the printer ribbons were not new ) We believe this to be a deliberate ploy by the RG to make OCR difficult.
• The files received have been disassembled and the continuous computer paper "separated" and trimmed to fit the A3 size scanner.
• Files have been scanned into Adobe.pdf files for reference and into .tiff files for OCR.
• Scanning equipment consists of - Nashua Afico 1022 Copier / Scanner
• An OCR (Optical Character Recognition ) routine is then run on the scanned images using OmniPage Professional Ver 14.0 and the image converted into an Excel spreadsheet.
• Routines (macro) are then run within Excel to separate the Alpha Character from the ID No and then an ID No verification routine run to verify the validity of the ID.
• The spreadsheet is then cleaned and imported into a SQ database specially designed to interrogate the data.
• From the SQ database selected data is acquired and printed.
• The printed forms are then used by volunteers to go "door to door" to physically verify the information extracted from the voters roll.

• Search for names, ID No's, etc and give list.
• Identify invalid ID No's
• Identify duplicate ID No's across any specified roll.
• Track migration of voters between different published rolls - ie between the Presidential voters Roll and the roll supplied in October 2004.
• List "new voters" ie those who were not registered in a previous published roll
• Sort ID No's by registration centre (Prefix) and (Prefix)

Analysis - Audited Voters Roll Harare North - appendices

Details of "Door to door" survey

Note
49,3% of the persons registered as voters on the Harare North roll are NOT known at the address indicated.

UMP Constituency

The door to door exercise in the constituency of UMP has been considerably more difficult than Harare.
However from the printed sheets the team has managed to establish significant anomalies in the roll.

Analysis - Audit Voters Roll for UMP - appendices

From the door to door survey the following has been established. One name appears 4 times in the UMP Voters Roll, and has 4 different identification numbers, two of European origin, yet the actual person is unknown to the Chipika family, in the Manyika Village and in the UMP Constituency

One name appears twice with two different identification numbers, one identification is of European origin, the address for the two identification numbers are from the same village, and yet the person is unknown in that village.

Names of two deceased persons appear in the UMP Voters Roll, each with two different identification numbers.

Names with identification numbers, yet persons of these names are unknown in the Constituency. (Some of these people are supposed to have transferred into UMP, yet, they are unknown in the constituency.)

Note
There are 723 voters with 00 as a suffix in their ID No within UMP - this does NOT conform to the requirements of the registration Districts.

The Electoral Supervisory Commission under the chairmanship of Justice Chiweshe and members Sarah Kachingwe, Rev Jonathan, Vivian Ncube and Professor George Kahari are challenged to remedy the situation and call for a multi-party investigation into the state of the roll and to ensure that the roll in digital electronic format is released to ALL interested parties so that meaningful contributions can be submitted.

To substantiate this report 2 Volumes of appendixes - totalling over 1800 pages - containing the research data is to be read in conjunction.

1 Letters written to the Registrar general asking for access to the Voters Roll
2 Report on the Supreme Court Judgement by an Independent observer.
3 Applications for the roll
4 Summary of registered voters by Constituency
5 Census 2002 - Preliminary report
6 Report on the Age Distribution of Zimbabwe's population
7 October 2004 roll summary.
8 Voters no longer in the constituency since PVR
9 Number of voters moved out of the constituence sorted by Prefix - ie Registration center
10 Number of voters moved out of the constituence sorted by Prefix - ie Registration center
11 Voters not registered in March 2002 now in the Harare North Constituency - Sorted by Suffix
12 Ethnic / Rural grouping of NEW voters in Harare North
13 Same ID different name
14 List of names sorted into Rural home of New voters - ie not registered in March 2002
15 List of NEW voters in the Harare North constituency since the presidential elections.
16 List of voters moved OUT of Harare North sorted into Suffix - Rural home
17 List of voters from "Door to door" survey.
18 Migrated into UMP
19 List OUT of UMP by name
20 New voters in UMP since presidential by name
21 List of NEW voters with 00 Suffix - incorrectly classified.
22 Random checks indicated case of DUPLICATE identification number with different name and constituency

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