THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) says it has so far registered about 4.3 million eligible voters.

And the Commission says it will commence registration of voters in correctional facilities from next Wednesday.

Speaking during a press briefing in Lusaka, Friday morning, ECZ Chief Electoral Officer Patrick Nshindano said that the Commission had made progress in the ongoing registration exercise, with a total of 4.3 million registered voters so far.

“Let me take this opportunity to mention that the Commission continues to make tremendous progress in registering voters and the following statistics have been recorded in the past three phases of the voter registration exercise. These are the cumulative statistics of the three phases of the exercise. In phase one, the Commission registered 1,100,006 voters. In phase two, the Commission registered 1,598,426; in phase three, which is the current phase we are reporting on, the Commission has registered 1,616,893 voters bringing our total to 4,321,319, the total currently registered for the first, second and third phase,” Nshindano said.

And Nshindano announced that the Commission would commence registration of voters in correctional facilities from next Wednesday, December 9.

“Voter registration in lawful custody will be conducted next week from the 9th to 11th December, 2020. For purposes of registration, inmates will be registered under the existing polling districts where the correctional facility is located,” he added.

He said that two persons had been arrested for registering twice during the exercise.

“Allow me to call upon members of the public and the stakeholders to desist from conducting any illegal acts and report anyone found conducting any illegality to the Commission or the nearest police station. My appeal comes in the wake of an image that has been circulating on social media of an underage person alleged to have been registered as a voter in addition to another incident of multiple registrations,” said Nshindano.

“Let reiterate that the Commission has a very thorough screening process, both automated and manual, and in the unlikely event that one did register illegally, the system will certainly detect and perpetrators will be prosecuted! We already have individuals that have been arrested in some of these instances.”