Civic society leaders have welcomed the move by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to computerise the transmission of election results.

ZEC says it is developing software, which will be used to transmit election results from district centres to the national command center in Harare ahead of the country’s big vote next year.

Questions have been raised in the past about the outcome of previous elections, with civic society organisations and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), lead by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, saying the election results may have been rigged.

Marvellous Tshuma, a civic society leader and advocate for free and fair elections, has told ITWeb Africa that greater transparency and involvement of all concerned parties is crucial to avoid cases of alleged vote rigging again.

She said the use of the internet and other computerised connectivity options to transmit the results to the command centre could minimise loopholes that could give rise to vote rigging.

“The results will have to be transmitted in the presence of all parties and they will be received and downloaded in the presence of all parties.

This limits the chances of manipulating the election results,” she said.

Joyce Kazembe, the acting chairperson for the Zimbabwean election body, said the system for the electronic transmission of results from district centres will be fully set-up by January next year. President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party want the elections as early as March.

Kazembe said the linking up of the district centres and the main center will cost $20 million. A source involved in the process has revealed that ZEC has applied for funding for the project from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“We are trying to eliminate human error when transmitting the results by computerising the whole process,” she said.