New system for poll registration

Cape Town -

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says political parties are on track to electronically register their candidates for this year’s local government elections.

Until now, political parties had always manually submitted their candidates’ details and their party lists for local government elections.

Briefing the National Assembly committee for home affairs this week on its readiness to hold the elections, the IEC’s deputy chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo, said the commission had been working with political parties to ensure there were no hiccups.

“It’s an exciting innovation in our view. Should it work well, it will position us as one of the first to employ this system in the world,” Mamabolo said.

However, despite modernising its candidate registration system, the IEC’s voting system was 10 years old and not capable of linking up with other electronic systems like the Smart ID, to assist in overcoming challenges like verifying voters’ residential addresses.

Mamabolo said the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, David van Rooyen, would soon be in a position to announce a date for this year’s local government elections.

By law, the election cannot be held later than August 16.

“We think that in the next few weeks the Department of Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs talks will be completed to allow the minister to make appropriate announcements regarding the election date,” said Mamabolo.

All vacancies that arise in municipalities from now on, will remain vacant until the elections, unless it affects the balance of power in a council.

MPs however said they were worried about the lack of impartiality among electoral officials.

The IFP’s Sibongile Nkomo and the DA’s Haniff Hoosen said they were worried about employing politically-aligned civil servants like Sadtu members as electoral officials.

The EFF’s Hlengiwe Hlophe said she was also worried about the lack of impartiality of those who assisted the visually impaired to vote.

IEC deputy chairman, Terry Tselane, said from drawing 98% of its electoral officials from the public service in 1998, it had reduced that number to about 8%, making use of the unemployed where possible.

IEC officials acknowledged that they had learnt some hard lessons from the Tlokwe Municipality Constitutional Court challenge.

IEC chairman, Vuma Mashinini, said with 63% of eligible voters without an official residential address, the IEC faced difficulties, particularly from those living in informal settlements.

“We have built on previous experiences. The court has called for higher standards and we believe we have the necessary competence and personnel,” Mashinini said.

Mamabolo said the IEC would use social media platforms to encourage young people to vote.

At least 84% of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29 were not yet registered to vote. StatsSA projects there will be 34.1 million eligible voters by May.

Mamabolo said the IEC would test its information technology and security systems before the end of next month and two dry runs were also scheduled to stress test the voting system.

The first voter registration drive will be held on March 5 and 6.