On May 29, voters flocked to the Skye College voting station to cast their votes in the national elections.
The presiding officer at the station stated that to accommodate voters, voting stations were separated into five alphabetically arranged sub-stations.
The presiding officer adds that scanners were not operating, and their system was offline during the day, so they had to revert to using the manual route of crossing people’s names out on the voters’ roll instead of scanning their identity documents.
The Roodepoort Northsider spoke to voters who were standing in the long lines and found that many of them were frustrated by the delays.
“I came to Skye College at 07:45, and I waited in the queue for five hours. It seems quite disorganised because the queues were split between substations, which delayed the process even longer,” Thershia van Buuren told the Northsider. She added that most people wanted to vote in the morning, but ended up waiting well into the afternoon.
“The officials could not tell us which queue we should wait in, and it was unfortunate for those who registered online and were not on the voter roll to be told they were unable to vote, but I will still cast my vote no matter how long I wait,” she said.
As the day progressed, more voters became frustrated with how stagnant the lines were after waiting all morning.
First-time voters Thoriso Nkosi and Thabang Potlaki assured the Northsider that regardless of the disorganisation of the IEC officials, they still wanted to cast their vote and make a change.
“We feel that the youth must dedicate themselves to make their mark if we want to see a change in future,” they said.
The Northsider contacted the IEC and was informed they are unable to comment unless authorised to do so.
