IEC: Vote counting complete, now capturing and processing results

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) confirmed that at 4pm on Thursday it had finished counting the nation’s votes.

It had also completely finished the recording process for 22.6% of its voting districts, which represents 2.3 million votes.

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“For all intents and purposes counting procedures have been concluded with only a few voting stations reported to still be counting at 3pm,” the IEC said.

Steps to ensure accuracy

“The process of results compilation entails ensuring accuracy and validation of the results.

“This process involves scanning each result slip to create an image of the result, double-blind capture of each result slip, and auditing of each result slip by independent auditors.

“A result is considered complete only when a result slip has been scanned into an image, captured onto the results system, audited by independent auditors and has gone through the automated Result System exception parameters.”

Proportion of votes captured:

• Gauteng captured 28%
• Limpopo 26%,
• North West 36%
• Northern Cape 63%
• Free State 56%
• KwaZulu-Natal 23%
• Mpumalanga 42%
• Eastern Cape 58%
• Western Cape 57%.

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The IEC thanked citizens who stood in long queues to vote as well as its staff who worked long hours to process the votes until this point.

“The commitment and patience shown by the voters and electoral staff demonstrates their commitment to our electoral democracy.”

The process of finalising the results of each voting station includes:

• Once the results have been counted and finalised, the presiding officer and party agents will, in the presence of observers, sign the result slip which will then be placed in a tamper-proof bag and transported to the capture centre.

• At the results capture centre, a check and balance process will ensue. This includes checking that the result slip is on the correct form and has details of the voting station and those of the presiding officer as well as a voting station unique barcode. It is then captured onto the system using the double-blind method.

• Using the barcode, the results slip is then scanned and the results are electronically matched with the appropriate voting district.

• External auditors will then audit the results slip to ensure that it is captured correctly.  The results are then taken through the Commission’s exception parameters. If an exception is flagged, the results are investigated and taken through the recapture process.

• Once the results pass the test, it will then become final and available to political parties, independent candidates and the media.

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When this is done the IEC will calculate the seating based on a prescribed formula.

“While this process is proceeding well, it is important to reflect that historically, in the first 24 hours, 80% of the results would have been finalised. However, the process in the NPE2024 has been slowed down by the third ballot, particularly in the metropolitan areas.”

The commission has seven days to announce the results after election day.