The winner of Ward 132 in the local government elections, councillor Annette Deppe, claimed there were many challenges during voting.
Deppe alleged, “The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa [IEC] team was just not cooperative and some of the staff were not friendly. All voters want is service delivery and some of them [electoral commission staff] were young and untrained.
“The staff in Midrand were still looking for staff at the 13th hour. It took me the entire day to get the commission’s management to come out and re-arrange the entire station to improve the turnaround times at Junior Montessori in Vorna Valley.
“At Kyalami Preparatory School, on arrival at 7am, the staff opened the doors without briefing the party agents and checking seals of boxes and opening boxes. All this happened while voters were already walking in. It was chaos the first 30 minutes.”
Deppe also claimed that the presiding officer at Kyalami Preparatory School refused to sign the objection form regarding conduct of an IEC staff member at that voting station. “They were not cooperative, decisions that were made before election day about breaking up the voters roll into streams, in alphabetical order, at the [voting] facilities were not the same on the day. When asked why, they [IEC officials] just shrugged me off.
“Also, the rules were clear about party agents being able to stand behind the ballot tables so they can observe properly. My party agents were told to sit on the stage, far from anything and everything they could observe.”
The commission’s Gauteng spokesperson Boitumelo Monaki apologised for the alleged bad experiences on voting day and said if a query had been received on the day of elections, it would have immediately received all the necessary attention and be resolved.
She said, “During election day, the election staff are faced with a lot of challenges, some due to unnecessary delays and some unforeseen. This can make them anxious and make mistakes, however, that is not an excuse to be rude to anyone.”
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