Ward 91 councillor, Andrew Stewart described the past weekend’s voting registration as ‘successful and uneventful with 14 000 new registrations from Sandton and most of Alex’.
Stewart did, however, explain that there was confusion regarding whether or not those who previously registered would have to prove residency.
Kate Bapela, chief communications officer of the IEC said, “Voters do not have to provide proof of residence, they just need to complete the REC1 form in full. Best is to complete the form on the IEC website, print it out and take that with them to their local municipal electoral office.”
Stewart added that those who have registered in previous years do not have to prove residency.
He said that the Tlokwe Court ruling changed the way that voting registration is conducted. Stewart explained that it was alleged that the by-elections in Tlokwe, ‘was a deliberate ploy by the ANC to ensure that they won the elections. It is for this reason that those registering need to provide proof of address’.
Advocate FJ Labuschagne explained the legal implications of this case in more detail and said, “The results of a number of by-elections in the Tlokwe Local Municipality led to the ordering of fresh by-elections because the elections were not free and fair.”
Labuschagne further explained that in a recent judgment in Kham and Others v Electoral Commission and Another, the court declared that, in future, when registering a voter to vote in a particular voting district, the IEC is obliged to obtain sufficient particularity of the voter’s address to enable it to ensure that the voter is, at the time of registration, ordinarily resident in that voting district.
“This requirement is necessary in a democratic society to ensure that voters living in an area are the people electing the required representatives and that there are no outside voters casting a vote in a municipality where they are not ordinarily living,” stressed Labuschagne.
Labuschagne reiterated that the reason voting registration is so significant is because it is a Constitutional right of all South Africans to vote in a free and fair election.
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