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                  Fraud Cries Spike Ahead of Zimbabwe Election

   by Anita Powell

   Zimbabwe's general public doesn't vote until Wednesday, but already
   there are cries of fraud.
   Critics of Zimbabwe's government say the electoral commission has
   committed an act of "massive voter disenfranchisement" ahead of
   Wednesday's voting. A website called [1]MyZimVote says it has received
   thousands of complaints from voters who say they are incorrectly
   registered or not registered at all.

   Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who is challenging longtime President
   Robert Mugabe for the third time, last week accused election officials
   of discarding some of the ballots cast by some 70,000 police and
   soldiers who were allowed to vote early. The discarded ballots, he
   noted, were all in the prime minister's favor.

   Other critics say Mugabe's loyalists have tampered with the vote ahead
   of time. Human Rights Watch has also heard concerns.
   "Our reports highlighted our concerns around the voters' roll and the
   fact that it hasn't been updated," said Africa Advocacy Director Tiseke
   Kasambala. "We received reports that there are ghost voters on that
   roll, or the names of dead people, up to a million dead people, on the
   voters' roll. And that has been a serious concern for us, because it
   means that it's possible that there could be fraudulent activity
   related to the voters' roll."

   For the first time, Zimbabweans can check their voter registration
   online at [2]MyZimVote, which compiled a database from the official
   voter roll. Organizers say one million people have used the site to
   check their status.
   According to the website's crowd-sourced reports page, anomalies
   abound. One respondent said his father was still on the Harare voter
   roll, despite having died in 2002.
   Dozens of visitors to the site - many of them expatriate Zimbabweans
   who are not allowed to vote abroad - say they never registered but are
   on the rolls. More than 100 people reported on the site that they
   registered to vote but are not on the books.
   The state-run newspaper has said the site is based on a bogus voters'
   roll, and officials from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission have said
   they are investigating the site.
   On Monday, the website issued a statement saying it was being "targeted
   and intimidated" by the electoral commission, and said organizers of
   the site would not be able to give media interviews out of fear that a
   named spokesperson could be targeted as well.
   Electoral commission officials could not be reached for comment.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [3]http://www.voanews.com/content/fraud-cries-spike-ahead-of-zimbabwe-e
   lection/1712490.html

References

   1. http://www.MyZimVote.com/
   2. http://www.MyZimVote.com/
   3. http://www.voanews.com/content/fraud-cries-spike-ahead-of-zimbabwe-election/1712490.html