USA has over 2 million dead people on voters roll

THE United States' pretences on democracy received a major knock on Tuesday in the wake of revelations that the country's voters roll has close to two million dead voters.

A report by Pew Centre, a renowned US thinktank, estimates that among 24 million voter registrations, about one out of every eight are either no longer valid or inaccurate.

The Washington-based research centre provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world.

The centre and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Of the invalid or inaccurate registrations, 1,8 million belong to deceased individuals and 2,75 million belong to people who are registered to vote in more than one state.

The study also found that 51 million US citizens are eligible to vote, but have not registered. This represents 24 percent of the eligible voting population.

"These problems waste taxpayer dollars, undermine voter confidence, and fuel partisan disputes over the integrity of our elections," said David Becker, director of Election Initiatives at the Pew Centre, in a statement on Tuesday .

The poor state of the voters roll was attributed to failure by election officials to update voter registration systems after registrants have moved to another voting district or died.

Pew found that the United States often uses outdated systems that are not only inaccurate but costly.

Pew has been working with several states' election officials, academics and technology experts on ways to improve the accuracy of voter registration lists while also reducing the overall costs of maintaining them.

The US in conjunction with a host of non-governmental organisations operating in Zimbabwe has been very vocal in criticising Zimbabwe's election management system.

Despite Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede's insistence that the country's voters roll is clean, the US and its allies always claim that there are 100 000 dead people on it.

Political analyst Professor Jonathan Moyo said: "The US Government which always wants to play a big brother role over Zimbabwe's voters roll has been caught with its dirty pants down."

He said the revelations exposed the US and people now know that the US does not walk its talk.

"We are waiting with keen interest to hear what Ambassador Charles Ray, his local media and non-governmental mouthpieces will say given that America is due to hold general elections in November."

Prof Moyo said the figures released in the study were far below the exact number of ghost voters on the US voters roll.

He said the figures were ample evidence that the US does not practise what it preaches to the world.

Every country with a paper-based voters roll, he said, was bound to have problems.

The Zanu-PF Politburo member and Tsholotsho North legislator said the fact that people die every day means a voters roll would always have dead people.

He said: "It is laughable that the same problems in Zimbabwe which occur for the same reasons in the US are described here as rigging. It is rank madness and this study will put paid to these scandalous claims about our voters roll."

Mr Tinei Zata said the US must deal with the log in its own eye than see the speck in other people's eyes.

"The US electoral system is far from democratic as was shown by the sham election that brought George W Bush to power even though he lost the popular vote to Al Gore by over 400 000 votes.

"The US has a 'do as I say not as I do' approach to issues, and we must never give ear to such pretenders,'' he said.

Another political analyst who refused to be named said there was no country in the world with a perfect election register. He said the US should not arm-twist other countries to do the impossible.

"The US is a government of hypocrisy which uses its money to sponsor puppets in countries such as Zimbabwe to make nonsensical claims about our voters roll as if they come from Mars," he said.