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ZEC unearths 700 cheats in voter register
2005-09-21 07:56:14
By Mwinyi Sadallah, Zanzibar
Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) has discovered that over 700 voters have registered more than once in the permanent voter register.
ZEC Chairman Masauni Yussuf Masauni said yesterday that in its ongoing verification exercise, the commission had discovered names that appeared in the register more than once.
A statement by the commission signed by Masauni said ZEC would track down and arrest voters who had registered more than once.
Masauni said that it was against the law for voters to give false information to the commission.
’The verification exercise is going on well and the initial results of the work have led us to discover that over 700 people had provided false information,’ he said.
He added that the authentication exercise would go on to weed out all cheats.
He said that local experts hired by NEC were conducting the verification exercise in collaboration with NEC officials.
ZEC decided to use the local experts after a stand off between the government and Waymark Infotech, the South African firm that had been contracted to prepare the voters’ roll, Masauni said.
He said Waymark had prepared fingerprints and pictures for the exercise that would have been verified by computer, but the government revoked the contract because the Attorney General’s office was not involved.
He said that potential voters who had successfully petitioned to be registered would do so between September 28 and October 5.
He said there has been a total of 4,001 objections been filed out of which 1,599 were from Unguja and 2,402 from Pemba.
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