Lack of IDs disenfranchises new voters

LACK of national identity documents is hindering youths in Gwanda from registering as voters.

Some youths in Gwanda do not have national identity cards, hence they fail to register.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) is currently running a mobile biometric voter registration blitz across the country ahead of the March 26 by-elections.

According to the 2018 statistics, the province had 264 185 registered voters.

Matabeleland South province has 13 constituencies and may lose a few in the next delimitation exercise for failing to meet the required voter population threshold.

The authorities could have taken advantage of this opportunity and deployed both teams concurrently.

Zimbabwe is still in the COVID-19 era, hence its citizens are not guaranteed what tomorrow holds.

It would have made more sense to have people from the Registry first before we get those from Zec.

Residents’ association are putting effort into motivating those who are eligible to register to vote to do so.

Matabeleland South will lose about four constituencies if it does not have enough people.

The biggest constituency at the moment, Beitbridge South, has about 36 000 registered voters, compared to Harare South which has over 76 000 registered voters.

The margins are too wide, there is a lot of work to do in terms of mobilisation.

Most youths in the province are incapacitated to partake in the election process due to lack of documentation.

The Community Youth Development Trust (CYDT) has embarked on a “Tell A friend to Tell A friend campaign” to create awareness for the need to register during the mobile biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise.

Youths are aware of the exercise and many of them want to register.

However, lack of IDs is preventing some from doing so especially.

Youths say government must have introduced the IDs rollout blitz before the commencement of the BVR.

The “Tell A friend to Tell A friend” campaign is a non-partisan voter mobilisation and civic education initiative for young voters.

Youths want to register to vote, but many of them have no IDs.

There are youths in Beitbridge and Umzingwane that are educating their peers and encouraging them to register to vote.

Another challenge is financial constraints which limits them from reaching out to youths living in remote areas as well as poor network connectivity.

Lack of critical documents has perpetuated voter apathy in the province, hence there is need to sensitise local youths on such issues as delimitation and its effects.

Centre for Innovation and Technology