The IEC is confident it will deliver a credible election despite an incident prone first day of special votes.
There were disruptions in Mthatha, Eastern Cape as a result of a violent taxi industry strike while in KwaZulu-Natal some voting stations could not open on time due to shortage of material.
The IEC on Monday expressed happiness with the turnout of more than 600 000 on the first day of special votes. About 1,7 million people had applied and been approved for special votes. Some South Africans including journalists and politicians took to social media claiming to have been denied the right to vote with some alleging their names suddenly did not appear on the voters roll but the IEC denied anyone was being deprived of their rights stating that persons may have unknowingly made multiple applications to the commission which have potential to override each other and inadvertently rendered themselves ineligible to vote at certain locations.
Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Masego Shiburi said the stringent and somewhat confusing measures were meant to minimise the risk of individuals voting more than once in an election. “If a voter applied for a special vote more than once the second transaction overrides the first transaction. Similarly, if a voter applies for a special vote and subsequent to that approval,applies or gives us pre-notification to vote by section 24A, the section 24 A overrides the special vote that has been granted. This is so that in order to honour the constitutional requirement that a voter may only vote once in an election. If you do otherwise, you open opportunities for accusations that certain persons have been able to vote more times than they are entitled to,” said Shiburi.
Shiburi said the reported incidents were few in between and therefore insignificant as the day was, according to the IEC, largely successful with more than 600 000 special votes cast across the country.
“Let’s put in the figures so that we get better perspective to evaluate the reported challenges. There are 1.6 million approved special votes at over 22600 voting stations. We’ve never been in that territory before and in any case, however unfortunate the reported incidents are, the reports of challenges are insignificant in the greater scheme of the challenge that we have to undertake, they represent less than zero point one of a percentage,” said Shiburi. Shiburi said the IEC would ideally want to ensure that everyone who wants to vote gets to do so.
“But our view is that we should assist every voter who have taken the time to apply for the special vote. So the challenges are not comparable with the number of voting stations that are opened,” he said. Tuesday is the second and last day of special votes with the main voting day being Wednesday. The IEC said voters who have been approved for special votes but failed to do so on Monday and Tuesday could still vote on Wednesday at voting stations they are registered to vote at.