Vote of no confidence: Not all South Africans can count on the IEC

It has been four days and I still have this mark on my finger.

It follows me everywhere and stands out whenever I look down at my hands or pick something up.

While it is a mark of pride for me, knowing that I voted and made my voice heard, it will remind many others of a long and frustrating wait on election day.

Many citizens had hoped to visit their polling station early on Wednesday, only to be greeted with shut gates or messages that ballot boxes and voting sheets had not arrived.

‘IEC System is offline’

When these did, the system quickly and quite randomly went offline. Nearly every voting station experienced “network problems” to some degree.

As Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) officials scrambled to find a fix, the queues got longer. Frustrated, many left. Others waited it out and collapsed from fatigue without proper medical officials to assist.

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Too many were turned away at the front because they had taken a chance and voted at their nearest voting station, instead of the one they had registered with. They claimed they were not informed they could not vote wherever they wanted.

Voting stations closed at 9pm, but some were still casting their ballot eight hours later at 5am the next morning.

When counting started in the evening, electricity outages hit, with reports that the IEC-issued lamps for such an emergency were nowhere to be found.

Lack of adequate training and implementation

Meanwhile, the IEC shrugged off incidents. They promised that “all should now be resolved” and “that must have happened just now, we will investigate”.

All of this made for what leading politicians called a disastrous day and failure by the IEC.

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Yes, there were logistical and technical issues and perhaps presiding officers did not implement manual voting mechanisms quicker. But it boils down to a lack of adequate training and oversight by the IEC. It was up to them to ensure those they did train were competent enough to lead a station and make the most effective decisions.

It is not enough to get at least 80% competency, as the IEC said it had trained its presiding officers to, when the 20% lacking is in basic problem-solving skills and following instructions.

A fair election for all

Thousands of officials worked hard, made a plan, and ran voting smoothly. But SA needs a strong, independent and working electoral system for all people. It is commendable that all voters were accommodated and it did not run into a second day of voting. But this could have been avoided.

Did staff know to split the voters’ roll and queue into sections to allow quicker voting? Were they all informed on what to do if someone tried to vote outside their registered area?

Was the electronic system stress-tested? Were the staff trained on backups if it failed?

The more serious glitch on voting day was poor management, communication and contingency planning. All of which the IEC must account for.

If they do not learn their lessons, the mark of shame may still be on them five years from now.

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