We Did Not Endorse Any Election Result: ZESN

6 years agoTue, 04 Sep 2018 20:54:10 GMT

We Did Not Endorse Any Election Result: ZESN

In an interview with Daily News, Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) Chairperson Andrew Makoni said the organisation did not endorse any election results when it published its sample based observation (SBO) results projection.

Makoni said ZESN conducted SBO in order to remove uncertainty over presidential election results by independently validating or invalidating the official presidential election results. Below is an excerpt of the interview:

Q: Some allege that Zesn endorsed the presidential election results, what’s your take on that?

A: Zesn as a non-partisan and impartial organization did not endorse any election result; in addition no voters were asked whom they voted for. The SBO is not an exit poll and findings of the SBO simply revealed that the official results as announced by Zec are consistent with our projections, which some may call validation. Since the SBO is based on a sample of polling stations it produces estimated ranges within which the results announced by an electoral management body should fall.
SBO projections on the presidential results were misinterpreted as an endorsement of the Zec results and some took the SBO as counter to claims by some of the contesting candidates that the election results had been tampered with.
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It is important to note that the Zesn SBO could not confirm whether or not there should have been a run-off and did not pass a judgement on other electoral processes as we are still observing the post-election period. In addition, it is important in future for the media to acquaint themselves well with the numerical and sampling methodologies and seek expert views on these to enable them to report accurately.