National Assembly (NA) Speaker, Mr Max Sisulu, has received a report on glitches that occurred during voting last week on the Protection of State Information Bill.
Following the voting on Thursday 25 April, a number of discrepancies were reported. These included names of MPs who were absent from the House appearing in the voting results as well as names of former Members.
A technical assessment has now been completed and the following was established:
The database of the NA’s voting system had not been updated after parties had changed their seating arrangements in the Chamber and vacancies had been filled. Consequently the seat numbers did not always correspond to the correct names.
The problems with the database did not impact on the numbers of voting Members. According to a preliminary reconciliation, the number of MPs who were in attendance on the day tallies with the number of Members who voted or abstained. 190 Members voted in favour of the bill, 74 voted against and one Member abstained.
The voting apparatus assigned to the Chief Whip of the Majority Party was found to be fully operational. At his request, his vote has been adjusted to a ‘yes’ vote in the record of proceedings.
Rule 93 of the NA rules provides for the correction of the (House) minutes in instances where the numbers have been inaccurately reported or error occurs in the names on the division lists. This will now be attended to as an administrative process after the completion of the reconciliation process and the Minutes of Proceedings will be reprinted. There will also be consultation with the affected parties where necessary.
Measures have also been put in place to ensure that the database on the system is updated more regularly.
