Mpumalanga citizens are ready to vote

It was voting registration weekend, and many South Africans went to various stations. The voting stations were opened from 08:00 to 17:00 on Saturday and Sunday, February 3 and 4, to allow new voters to register and existing ones to check and if necessary update their registration details.

Mpumalanga News visited John Mdluli Primary School’s registration station in Matsafeni on Sunday and engaged with some of the community members who had come to register and to check if their information was in order.

The online voter registration portal, registertovote.elections.org.za, remains available for first-time voters to register until the date of the elections is announced. This is also available for those who have already registered and want to update their registration details.

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“The registered voters can visit the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) website (www.elections.org.za) to check their current registration details and voting station location. They can also SMS their ID number to 32810 to receive an SMS containing the address of their voting station (charged at R1).”

According to the IEC, after the first registration weekend held in November 2023, the voters’ roll had 26.8m voters. “The commission is hopeful that the second registration weekend has surpassed the satisfactory turnout recorded in November.”

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Citizens aged 16 years and older can register to vote. All they need is a South African identity document (ID), either a green barcoded ID book, smartcard ID, or a valid temporary ID certificate. By the time of going online, the newspaper had not received the overall feedback on the registration weekend from the Mpumalanga IEC.

Some community members share their views on the registration weekend: