Gerrymandering is A Known Rigging Tactic
21 February 2021
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By Mari Matutu | I am disappointed by members of the opposition. They cry for electoral reforms and complain of election rigging. It is now one of our mantras and an excuse for incompetence.

While Zanu look so invincible I am slowly believing we are playing a huge  part in our oppression. There are some things that can only be said or done by opposition. There are also some things that require political muscles and mobilisation of electorate, however somethings have already been fought for. All you need is claiming your right.

Most often I get responses that look so “rosy” and “juicy” to listen to. Things like “ZEC is Captured” or “judiciary is captured”. Yet we see the laws of the land are amended. Some words are removed from constitution and look very minor, we do not raise concern. In parliament we do not raise that which forbid the amendments. We do not even mobilize our followers to open up and see the consequences of such amendments.

When those amendments are being used against us then we start to cry.

May I take a simple example of a matter  I have spend whole week trying to fight but without support, the matter of ZEC trying to use the number of registered voters to delimit constituencies and wards . I have tried to look for input of opposition on the constitution amendment number2 . I could not find any. This does not mean there is non. The fact that our Constitution is being amended but our followers do not know the position of opposition on items being amended is a total disaster. 

I looked at the Bill that seek to amend constitution’s section 161(1). The amendment look very minor and excuses given by the regime and ZEC look very nobble in the ears of unsuspecting citizen. The effects of amendment can only be seen two years from now. By then we would not have anything to do.

  1. 12 Amendment of section 161 of Constitution Section  161  (“Delimitation  of  electoral  boundaries”)(1)  of  the  Constitution  is  amended by the deletion of “so as to fall as soon as possible after a population census”.

The explanation given by regime first time was that census was due in 2022 and there will be no time to prepare for elections if delimitation is to fall as soon as possible after a population census. In stead they moved the census to 2021. Not only did they do that. They seek to amend the constitution not delimit soon after population census. If they could move the population census to 2021 , what other reason do they have to amend s161 and delete the requirement of population census? I have already shared my views on legal instruments that make the amendment illegal. We may not need numbers but approach constitutional court to have that amendment removed. The effort only comes after understanding implication of this amendment.

  • Gerrymandering.

This is a well known election rigging tactic. It is a practice intended to establish an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating electoral boundaries, which is most commonly used in first-past-the-post electoral systems.(First -past-thepost is where the candidate with highest votes takes the seat or ward).

Since Gerrymandering has to do with setting up of boundaries, it must be realised that it is one of the rigging tactic executed far away from election environment. It has a long term effect of up to ten years. If the electoral Commission succeed to rig the boundaries it means we are going to live with it for 10 years.

C)      Use databases and computer technology  

The introduction of modern computers alongside the development of elaborate voter databases and special constituency software has made gerrymandering a far more precise science. Using such databases, political parties can obtain detailed information about every household including political party registration, previous campaign donations, and the number of times residents voted in previous elections and combine it with other predictors of voting behaviour such as age, income, race, or education level. With this data, gerrymandering politicians can predict the voting behaviour of each potential constituency with an astonishing degree of precision, leaving little chance for creating an accidentally competitive constituency.

On the other hand, the introduction of modern computers would let the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency to calculate more equal populations in every voting constituency or ward that are based only on constituency being the most compact and equal populations. This could be done easily using their block centres based on the Global Positioning System (GPS) rather than street addresses. With this data, gerrymandering politicians will not be in charge, thus allowing competitive constituencies again.

Online web apps such as Dave’s Redistricting have allowed users to simulate redistricting states into legislative districts as they wish. ZEC can get any of these online web apps and enter data gathered from registration of voters, previous election results in the server which we do not know yet, political membership data base from MDC through files with Mwonzora as well as zanu data bases then punch these into the software to bring skewed constituencies that will always give zanu a majority in parliament in councils

       D)     How Gerrymandering works in Zimbabwe

 Lets take those three blocks on top to help explain how Gerrymandering can be applied to Masvingo for instance.

  1. From previous elections results kept by ZEC, polling

stations that had zanu are shown by red circles and polling stations that voted for MDC are blue squares. This is what is in ZEC server. No one else know about these results. What ZEC gave as results could not tally or mathematically be verified. Now ZEC has opportunity to use that data.

  • Imagine if a population census is carried out by Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency. It goes and collect data. One of the data is to find number of registered voters/adults with opportunity to register to vote in the next 10 years and their geographic distribution. On completion of the exercise a delimitation is done to divide Masvingo equally. The population census does not look into ZEC register. They physically go door to door and find people above 18 who are eligible to vote- (universal adult suffrage which s3(2) of constitution demands).  The division does not take any previous voting trends but treat everyone equally. The number of people are divided equally. Now assume we divide it into 3 like in (a) you will see that zanu will lose in three constituencies. If we rig the boundaries because we feel in Masvingo there is a central point were zanu is popular and can win election without fail then ZEC can then try to get a seat by utilizing that. It then attach small portion of surrounding MDC strongholds. Which they observe by polling stations. If they observe family members that appear most on a voters roll that gave MDC a

good result on a particular polling station, all they do is put that family into another ward that would neutralize their effect. Eventually where Zanu should not have a seat if census figures had been used , it manages one seat. If you still look at Masvingo in blocks, MDC has majority votes which if divided equally it must give three seats to MDC like in (a).

  • Let us assume from ZEC’s data base, there is a

paten in the distribution of polling stations that voted zanu such that if ZEC was to follow the paten in drawing boundaries, ZEC can come up with a delimitation like in (c) . Where zanu was suppose to get Zero actually it manage to get 2 seats and leave one seat for MDC. Imagine it, even when Zanu was suppose to get zero, gerrymandering has given them two seats out of 3.

I have illustrated with blocks as if its Masvingo. It can be any province, it can be any district divided into wards, the result is the same. The point is ZEC should not be allowed to use its own generated date to delimit. Lets have a look at the actual constituencies in Masvingo. The shape of boundaries must tell you a story that you must believe. If you cannot believe it, then its gerrymandered delimitation. I leave you to explain on this on why each constituency had to follow a certain boundary lane. Is it related to geographic features, population or some other feature related to human settlement. It must also help explain why places like  Chiredzi is suspected of allowing sugar cane to vote. I do not have Statistics on how the delimitation was done but as soon as question arise like “kwai vhotwa nenzimbe kani” then ZEC is being challenged.

 

 

Anyone who ignores gerrymandering is a regime enabler. We cannot cry for reforms when the laws are there.

Stand up or they stand on you