The first day of the Electoral Commission’s registration drive is going very well, the chairperson of the Commission said on Saturday.
“As at 10am, 98% of our registration stations had opened and were fully functional. We are very happy with the arrangements thus far,” said IEC Chairperson, Brigalia Bam.
The registration drive is being held to give new voters a chance to register for this year’s municipal elections, voters who have moved or changed address to re-register and those who may wish to inspect their details on the voter’s roll to do so.
Registration is taking place in 20 867 voting stations, a six percent increase over the 19 726 voting stations of the 2009 elections.
“You may ask what is happening to the last two percent. A number of stations did not open because of flooding. These include nine stations: five in Keimoes in the Northern Cape; two in Beaufort West in the Western Cape and two in Philippolis in the Free State,” said Dr Bam.
In some of the cases where there were delays in pitching tents, our officials used the boot of their cars to continue with the registration. In Limpopo’s Blouberg municipality district, IEC officials had to climb up a mountain to reach 50 households.
“We appreciate the effort and commitment demonstrated by colleagues,” she added.
“On the technology front, our connectivity is up and running, even though it is being flooded with enquiries and it is slow. That is because thousands are using it to check their registration status. For example, our website hits increased from 16 000 on Monday, to 80 000 on Friday. This morning, up to 11h00am, we have had 27 000 hits and 39 000 SMS enquiries,” said Dr Bam.
Registered voters are advised to SMS their ID number to 32810, contact the IEC call centre on 0800 11 8000 or visit the IEC website to check on their registration details.
For media enquiries please contact:
Kate Bapela
Cell: 082 600 6386
