Electoral Commission officials reported smooth operations around the country as the second day of registration got underway, with all but a handful of voting stations reported open and functional. Areas which yesterday experienced some disruptions were all reported to be calm this morning with voting stations open. This included Sterkspruit in the Eastern Cape, Malamulele in Limpopo, the Joe Morolong municipality in the Northern Cape, Site C Lansdowne Road in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, and Bekkersdal in Gauteng where isolated incidents had yesterday disrupted registrations.
These and other areas are being monitored by security services officials to ensure calm and that voters are able to exercise their right to register to vote and participate in next year’s national and provincial elections are not affected.
Only a handful of registration stations were not open by mid-morning today due to minor issues including in Limpopo where a bus transporting election and security personnel had broken down. In some remote areas of KwaZulu-Natal some registration stations were also not open earlier today as heavy overnight rains had made the rural roads impassable. It is hoped the stations would open later today as the roads dried out.
Preliminary estimates were that approximately 1.1 million persons visited registration stations yesterday. Early trends were that approximately 40% were new registrations, 49% were applicant changing registration details from one voting district to another and 11% were applicant re-registering in the same voting district.
Initial trends also point to a relatively high turnout by young people with up to 75% of new registrations being people under 30 years of age. The largest numbers of visits to registration stations recorded by last night were in Gauteng, KZN and Western Cape.
Voting stations are open until 5pm today and anyone who is within the registration station precinct at 5pm will be assisted with registration before the station closes.
After closing Electoral Commission staff will continue to upload data from each voting station to update the voters’ roll. Registration applications can take up to seven days to be processed and eligible voters loaded on the voters’ roll.
For media queries please contact:
Kate Bapela
Cell: 072 236 2771
For media interviews please e-mail requests to spokesperson@elections.org.za
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