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Audrey Rundofa Herald Reporter
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)’s Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) mop-up exercise has registered 246 149 potential voters, who failed to register during the initial registration blitz, which ended on December 19. The new registrations bring the total number of registrants to 5 125 631 as at January 28. Nearly 4,9 million people were registered during the initial blitz.

But in some areas, inclement weather conditions are still affecting the registration process. “Registrants find it difficult to go to register because of the challenges brought by heavy rains, hailstorms and whirlwinds. Measures to counter this include transporting kits to areas with electricity and using hired vehicles to charge the batteries,” read the statement.

However, ZEC’s latest statistics show that Harare has the highest number of registered voters at 804 636 as at January 28. Midlands has registered 698 124 voters, followed by Manicaland with 676 753 voters, Mashonaland East 574 071, Masvingo 568 210 and Mashonaland West 540 113.

ZEC officials in Mashonaland Central have captured 493 662 voters, Matabeleland North 310 429, Bulawayo 230 052 and Matabeleland South, which recorded the lowest number of voters at 229 581.

At total of 5 555 people were turned away during the mop-up exercise for various reasons, which include bringing wrong particulars such as drivers’ licences and photocopied national identity cards. In some provinces such as Mashonaland, for example, people were turned away because some of them either didn’t have IDs or the ones they had were defaced.

In Mashonaland East, a large number was turned away because ID numbers on the same ID document did not match. Others were also turned away for being aliens. The mop-up exercise began on January 10 and ends on February 8.