IEC expresses regret over election leader board glitch

The IEC has expressed regret over a technical glitch on Friday morning that saw numbers on the leader board disappear for at least two hours.

The clear leader board caused panic among some political parties, with some parties demanding an explanation and the DA threatening legal action.

Minutes after the numbers returned to the board, the political party representatives in the hall clapped their hands, but there was still an unsettling feeling about the numbers.

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Technical glitch

In a press briefing on Friday afternoon, Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said the technical glitch should have never happened but assured South Africans that the results were authentic and not tampered.

“The Commission regrets the incident this morning when the leader boards at the results operation centre’s and our website could not display the results,” he said.

Mamaboloi said the IEC results systems had not crashed but simply experienced a technical glitch.

“We wish to emphasise that our system did not crash and no data was compromised.”

He said the Commission went into the elections with a full IT plan, which included a backup and recovery in case it was needed.

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“The incident involved the activation of a necessary control not to display to leaderboards, which is a feature of the result system,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mamabolo said the commission was pulling all stops to ensure the finalisation of the capturing and auditing of the results for the 2024 national and provincial elections.

“As indicated yesterday, counting at all voting stations is complete, and we have all the results at our local offices. The process underway is capturing them on our system for tallying and seat allocation,” he said.

71,76% captured by 4pm

According to Mamabolo, a total percentage of 71.76 results have been captured.

As of 4pm on Friday afternoon, the progress relating to the capture of the results per province was as follows: the Eastern Cape is at 92.13%, with 4485 of the 4 868 voting districts completed. Free State is at 95.52%, with 1 515 of 1 586 voting districts completed.

Gauteng was at 75.33%, with 2 107 of the 2 797 voting districts completed. Kwa Zulu Natal is at 75.37%, with 3 749 of 4 974 voting districts completed.

 Mpulanga was at 91.94% with 1 665 of 1 811 Voting Districts completed.

Northern Cape is at 100% with 730 of 730 Voting Districts completed. Limpopo is at 80.78% with 2 598 of 3 216 Voting Districts completed.

The North West was at 88.61% with 1 540 of 1 738 Voting Districts completed.

Western Cape was at 88.99% with 1 399 of 1 572 Voting Districts completed.

“The Electoral Commission wishes to remind South Africans that the ballots are counted at the voting station where they are cast,” Mamabolo said.