‘Load shedding won’t significantly impact our work’ – IEC tells Parliament ahead of voter registration weekend

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) says load shedding won’t disrupt its work with days to go to the national voter registration weekend.

Officials from the IEC and Department of Home Affairs appeared before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday.

The voter registration weekend will take place on November 18 and 19, with the IEC calling on citizens to register and to update their details for the 2024 general elections.

Currently, there are more than 26 million eligible voters on the voters’ roll.

There will be 23 296 voting stations across all provinces, with more than 72 000 people being recruited by the IEC to assist over the weekend.

Systems upgraded

IEC deputy chief electoral officer (CEO) Masego Sheburi informed MPs on Tuesday that the commission had enhanced its systems after the first voter registration in 2021.

This included upgrading voter management devices (VMD).

“The scanning of IDs should take a quicker time because we have optimised the device to read off Android,” he told the committee.

Sheburi said the offline mode has also been optimised, which will allow for the VMD to operate without connectivity.

“In offline mode, what it means is that we can’t process transactions in real time. The device stores the information on its storage drive and once a stable network has been established only then will the device transmit [the data],” the IEC deputy CEO said.

On load shedding, IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya said the rolling blackouts were not a major concern for the commission.

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“If on Saturday and Sunday we do have load shedding during the day, I submit that it will be not be of a nature that will not significantly impact our work,” he said.

Mopeya highlighted that the VMD would have enough power to function for a full day.

“The battery will be able to operate for a day even if we do have load shedding,” the IEC commissioner continued.

He added that no voter details would be lost if the capturing system experienced any technical difficulties.

“When a voter has been scanned that information is kept on the machine. There is no information that we will need afterwards… once the information is captured it is kept until it is safely downloaded on to the system. There is no information lost as a result of being offline or any connectivity network.

Watch the meeting below:

Second voter registration weekend

Sheburi indicated that while South Africans abroad also have a voter registration weekend in January next year, he pointed out that they could register online.

“The out-of-the-country portal will be available effectively from this weekend and those South Africans who want to register there will have to upload [a picture of] their identity document. They don’t have to go to a mission if they complete their application online.”

The IEC deputy CEO further said that there will be another voter registration weekend.

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“We are funded and scheduled to host second voter registration weekend, but because its yield depends largely on whether an election date is known, we would want to only announce the date of the second voter registration weekend once the presidency has confirm the day in which the election will be contested.

“That registration weekend is as close to the date of proclamation as possible so that by the time you hold elections your voters’ roll is up to date with persons who registered recently.”

He also revealed that 155 people who were recruited to help with the voter registration weekend have been blacklisted.

“Either because of a criminal record or any other serious criminal offences,” Sheburi added.

ID collection

Meanwhile, Home Affairs Deputy Minister Njabulo Nzuza confirmed the department’s branches would be open across the country for collection of smart ID cards and passports.

“We are not supposed to have a person so say I cannot register to vote on the basis that they ID will be with Home Affairs or they are not in possession of their ID, firstly because we would have opened our offices during the past weekend and we are also going to open this weekend, which means a person who has discovered that they lost their ID can visit any of our branches to be able to get a temporary identification certificate on the spot and use it to go and register,” he said.

Nzuza said at least 10 000 people collected their IDs over the weekend.

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