ZEC Chairperson Priscilla Chigumba has confirmed receiving an MDC Alliance petition handed during its demonstration on Wednesday saying it is not different from the previous petition.

Justice Chigumba who sent a clerk to receive the petition from the opposition leader during a demonstrating with over 100 000 people said they were seized with the petition and would respond after studying the document.

“Our preliminary finding is that the petition is not substantially different from an earlier petition meaning the responses were likely to be the same,” said Justice Chigumba.

On the designing of ballot paper, Justice Chigumba said the proposed one column design would have resulted in a long ballot paper of A3 plus in size and required double the amount of paper.

“The cost benefit analysis revealed that the option would have required not only an increase in ballot paper but also an increase in production time. Thus the option had both financial and logistical implications on the commission’s preparations,” said Justice  Chigumba.

Justice Chigumba reiterated that there were not responsible for the distribution of mobile phone numbers of people to one political party which eventually sent text messages canvassing for support

“Our preliminary finding showed that some of the people who received the messages were not even on the voters roll,” said Justice Chigumba.

Zec deputy chairperson Mr Emmanuel Magade dismissed social media claims that the ballot paper was structured in a way that would result in one’s vote magically moving from one’s preferred candidate to another.