Voting in dollar$ – An insight into the cost of election administration in Zimbabwe

The Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Justice Rita Makarau recently announced at a press conference that they require close to 2 million American dollars to run the impending by-elections per constituency.

Consistently, the media has been awash with projections of what ZEC needs for the imminent eighteen by elections scheduled to be held between May and June 2015. How ZEC explains that figure as realistic and cost efficient is for them to answer.

However the ERC has done and herein presents an analysis of election cost beginning July 2013 when the country used a minimum of USD 132 million to hold harmonized elections, to present using the 2 million figure as given by Justice Rita Makarau.

This paper goes further to compare with regional costs of election administration as averaged to the cost per voter. This analysis is expected to give an opportunity to electoral stakeholders to reflect on the cost of election administration in Zimbabwe much as it shall direct discourse on the best methods for cost effective election management.

2.0.  Cost Allocation Matrix- ZEC must give more details 

Electoral administrative costs are both fixed and variable. Variable costs are the ones which change and vary depending on share of integrity and core costs. Among variable costs are costs of voter registration, boundary delimitation, the voting operation, counting and transmission of results, dispute adjudication and voter education and information.

ZEC’s core costs for election administration presumably include personnel costs and operational costs, variable and fixed costs, integrity and core costs. Zimbabwe remains in the dark as to how the election authorities allocate their costs and indeed what priorities they focus on.

The ERC implores upon ZEC to share more details on how they are allocating costs. It is essential to pay attention to international best practice on allocations of electoral costs.

In 2013, security was allocated 29% of the budget. This can be adjusted to reflect elections held in peaceful countries. Police must deploy on their own, while ZEC only pays for few police officers at polling areas.

3.0. Understanding the figures

The 2013 harmonized election was run on a minimum budget of USD132 477 million. When divided by 210 constituencies the figure is USD628, 571 per constituency.

This constituency figure is then divided by the number of registered voters to find cost of election per voter. The same is done using the 2 million per constituency figure which was recently pronounced by ZEC.

4.0.  A very expensive vote

The 2013 harmonized vote averages USD22 per voter. While on the high side, it is quiet consistent with the regional figures. The regional highest is Botswana costing USD28 per voter as of 2010.

When using the 2 million figure per constituency, the cost per voter balloons to an average of USD70 per voter for the impending by-elections. It also means the total cost of running a general election in Zimbabwe potentially goes up to USD420, 000, 000. 

How it becomes more expensive to run a house of assembly election alone as compared to the harmonized election remains mysterious.  Using the analysis contained in this paper, it will cost the Mbizo voter an average of USD95 for the coming by-election alone.

Key Question: At the rate with which the country is going into by-elections, are the costs for administering elections reasonable and sustainable to the national fiscus?

Fig 1: A regional comparative of election costs

5.0.  Recommendations

1.       ZEC must ensure transparency and clarity on their prioritization for election funding across the electoral cycle.

2.       Election administration costs in Zimbabwe must be reasonable, cost effective and reflective of international best practices.

3.      ZEC must consider new methods of election management which are cost effective. These include biometric voter registration, ICT based voter education and electronic based voting.

This report was produced by the Election Resource Centre (ERC) Zimbabwe