We just got this in from a subscriber – So if you think you’re not on the voters’ roll, maybe it’s worth just double checking – Maybe you are!

Re aliens and Zim Voting: My husband and I got the surprise of our lives this morning. As ‘aliens’, my husband and my names were not on the Online Voters Roll and we were not allowed to vote in 2008, when our names had been removed from the voters role. So my husband took a stroll to our Polling station (Eastridge School) this morning and decided check. Just in case. His name and mine were both on the list and he was allowed to VOTE! I’m about to go now and stand in the queue. So please post and encourage ‘aliens’ to take the chance and go and check. Please put word out! (Also 60′s and over can request to go to front of queue). Also be advised to use your own pens! Word has it that pens with refills that fade after 4 hours are inserted in regular ballpoints in MDC strongholds. I doubted this, but then read that this had indeed been a ploy of the Israelis’s that played out in Kenya.

Source: #ZimElections

Our hands full or not:
The same abundance.
Our eyes open or shut:
The same light.

- Yves Bonnefoy, in The Curved Planks: Poems

From a voter

For sure a budget election. Pictures not good. To be sure you need to be able to read, or have had an affair with the person. Example: I have warned my parents to take their time and take their glasses.

Reports received that several voters are not on the voting rolls where they were expected. This means they cannot vote in their constituencies, and are expected to attend thousands of kilometers away. This makes it impossible for them to vote.

Reports in also that there is a heavy presence of security personnel observing who is going in and out of polling stations.

The ballot paper is also confirmed as problematic, ZANU PF candidates are in bold, and easily identified, candidates from other parties are blurred or not easily identified.

Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum

I went to get some fuel on my way to the office this morning. The petrol attendent asked me whether I’d voted and I said no. He spent the next 5 minutes telling me passionately why I should go vote and why my vote was important. He didn’t seem particularly worried about the vast rigging that’s been taking place, instead he felt that the will of the people would trump any electoral trickery. He also said that it just wasn’t right that a 90 year old man should be governing Zimbabwe. One of his most uplifting observations was that Zimbabwe belongs to us – its citizens – and not the power toting politicians who have chosen to turn Zimbabwe into their personal playground. Finally I said, so what happens when Mugabe claims victory; what then? He said that a Mugabe victory is just not possible this time.