Voters’ roll has 92% of addresses – IEC

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has produced an up-to-date national voter’s roll containing over 90% of voter’s full addresses – making it compliant with the ruling of the Constitutional Court.

The IEC also announced its intention to use experiences of the recent two by-election rounds of 11 November and 9 December to fine-tune their preparations for the 2021 local government elections. The date for the polls is expected to be announced by the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, early next year.

IEC deputy chief electoral officer Masego Sheburi said they have captured 92% of voters with full addresses. The commission is required by electoral laws and the constitution to provide addresses for all voters. The IEC was compelled by the Constitutional Court in its ruling in June 2016 to update the voters’ roll, to enable all voters with addresses to be registered.

At the time of the ruling, the IEC had a mere 32% of the voters with full addresses. After realising the ruling would be impossible to comply with in time for the 2016 local government election, the IEC approached the apex court for clarity. The court granted it a temporary reprieve to be able to able to conduct the election as still “non-compliant”.

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In November 2018 the court gave the IEC an extension to update the roll with available addresses until November 2019. Sheburi told The Citizen while they would have liked to have 100% compliance with addresses, it was difficult to achieve due to many emerging informal settlements and people who lived in inaccessible places.

He said the Wednesday by-elections went smoothly, with minor incidents reported which were easily resolved in time. He attributed the success to voters who complied with IEC and Covid-19 protocols and the cooperation among political parties. There are currently 26 362 999 voters on the voters roll, of which 14 534 088 are females and 11 828 911 male.

– ericn@citizen.

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