More than one million people register on first day of voter registration weekend

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has announced that more than one million South Africans registered to vote on Saturday – the first day of the voter registration weekend.

The two-day voter registration weekend started on Saturday.

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According to the IEC, 23,296 registration stations opened across all provinces, operating from 8am to 5pm.

More than one million voters

There are more than 26 million eligible voters on the voters’ roll in South Africa, including 14 million unregistered youth.

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At the close of day one of the voter registration weekend, over a million registrations were recorded at the country’s 23,296 voting stations, said the commission.

“The Electoral Commission is pleased to report that day two of the Registration Weekend has started exceedingly well. By 8am, 91 percent of the voting stations had opened, with the remainder opening before 8:30am,” it said on Sunday.

“At 12:30pm today, a total of 609,447 registration transactions had been recorded at voting stations.”

Provincial breakdown

• Eastern Cape: 118,574
• Free State: 38,860
• Gauteng: 120,294
• KwaZulu-Natal: 108,878
• Limpopo: 82,408
• Mpumalanga: 44,694
• Northern Cape: 15,443
• North West: 42,375
• Western Cape: 37,921

The Commission also recorded “an all-time milestone” of over 100,000 online registrations. As at 12pm, the figure of online registrations stood at 40,000.

“The Commission is seized with resolving some online registrations that gave a ‘pending’ message. The ‘pending’ message is received by voters in instances where the ID image that they have uploaded cannot be read or recognised by the system or where an image other than an ID has been uploaded.

“We urge voters to take extra care and follow system prompts when uploading images of their ID”

The Commission applauded South Africans who have gone online and visited registration stations to register, re-register or check their details.

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“We urge those that have not done so to use the remaining hours of today to go out in their numbers to register.”