With only sixteen days remaining before Zambia Votes, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has commenced trainings for 504 poll staff in readiness for the 12 August General Elections.
ZANIS reports that those attending the training include Presiding officers, Assistant Presiding Officers, Polling Assistants, and Ushers.
The four-day training for the poll staff is being conducted by ECZ District Election Trainers in preparation to be deployed to a total of 73 polling stations to manage voters on August 12 when the country will elect its leaders at presidential, parliamentary and local government level. Chadiza District Electoral Officer Phinias Mtonga says the training will ensure that there is sufficient staff trained to be competent in their required duties in the voting stations and at the vote count.
“For a national election, staffing and training is one of the biggest staff mobilisation exercise that is undertaken in any country. The election officers we are training today are being equipped to be effective officers with how they will serve the public in the aspect of elections,” he said.
Mr Mtonga noted that the effectiveness in election officers is cardinal as they are the point of interaction that citizens have with the electoral process.
He said in order to effectively determine staff functions and categories for voting operations, staffing profiles should be developed for voting stations and the count.
“This training of poll staff will instill competencies and the election integrity ethos in all the trainees that have been selected to handle the elections in various polling stations,” he said.
Chadiza district will have 504 polling staff to be distributed in a total of 20 wards with 73 polling districts.
The district total number of registered voters is 44,779 of which 19,854 are male while 24,925 are female.
