Recommended? Come on Luchi! You of all people should surely know the difference between recommended and prescribed. The law does not recommend. It prescribes. In this specific case, the law, namely the Electoral Process General Regulations of 2016, specifically prescribes a CROSS as the legal mark for use when casting one’s ballot in a polling station. I challenge you or any other person to cite a law that mentions a TICK or provides for the use of a TICK in place of a cross. Even in Tanzania, where a tick is provided for, the law states that a voter can use a tick or a cross. It is not open-ended.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia operates on the basis of what the law says. If a tick is acceptable, even if it is not provided for by law, then what would happen if each of the 8m certified voters used a mark that is different from a tick and a cross? Why would the ECZ accept one mark that is not provided for in the law and reject another mark that is equally not provided for in the law? There will be chaos.
There is a reason why the law provides for specifics. It is to create what is standard and remove subjectivity. If each person can do whatever they want, it means those regulations that provide for the CROSS mean nothing. One can never give a provision of the law an interpretation that would make it redundant. You should know this basic legal principle, given your training.
Since the 1969 referendum, Zambians have voted using a cross in form of an X. There is no need for the ECZ to confuse voters at the eleventh hour by making accommodations that are not explicitly prescribed by the law. Let the Commission stick to the specific mark that is prescribed by law. Last minute manoeuvres by the electoral authorities just feed suspicion and undermine public confidence in the electoral process.
Already, there are some people who are saying that there are ballot papers that were printed in Tanzania and that the people who were hired to pre-mark the said ballot papers messed up by putting a TICK (as used in Tanzania) instead of a CROSS. Since it was too late to correct the error by ordering fresh ballots, it is said that the ECZ okayed the use of a TICK, even if the law only prescribes the use of a CROSS, to facilitate vote manipulation or industrial scale vote-rigging. I don’t believe these reports because I am yet to see any supporting evidence, but I can see why people would be suspicious.
What is wrong with us. We set laws and we want to change them everyday? What type of people are we? X is what the law says and that has the practice.
Shifting positions daily. sickening.
