Members of political parties
Members of observer missions
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
The Electoral Commission is very pleased with how the counting of the votes is progressing. As at 11h30 today, the counting of votes and the capturing of results have been completed in over half of the country’s 22 263 voting districts.
While a picture of trends is beginning to emerge, it is still far too early to make any meaningful predictions of the final outcome.
This is because while over half of all voting districts have been captured, these have tended to be the smaller voting districts and municipalities in terms of voter numbers.
By 11h30 today just over 7.55 million votes had been counted – out of 25.39 million registered voters. This is less than 30% of the total possible votes.
In those voting districts which have been counted, captured and audited, we have recorded an average voter turnout of just over 72.61%. We are hoping this will grow further as the voting districts from large urban, metro areas are captured.
In terms of the provincial election count, the following were the percentages of voting districts captured and audited by 11h30:
- Eastern Cape: 63%
- Free State: 41%
- Gauteng: 18%
- KwaZulu-Natal: 44%
- Limpopo: 38%
- Mpumalanga: 72%
- North West: 46%
- Northern Cape: 89%
- Western Cape: 79%
You will notice that the provinces with the highest number of registered voters – Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal - are among the lowest percentages of captured and audited votes so far.
This means that we can still anticipate significant movement during the course of the day.
Of the votes captured and audited so far, just 1.44% of ballots have been recorded as spoilt. Special votes have comprised about 2% of the ballots.
Interestingly, of the votes captures so far, out records show that approximately 1 in 10 voters voted outside of the voting district in which they were registered which supports indications yesterday where some stations had run short of ballot papers and VEC 4 forms which had to be replenished.
According to feedback from the provinces, the final voting stations in metro areas assisted the last voters at approximately 11h30 last night in Cape Town, shortly after midnight in Durban and in the early hours of this morning at Joubert Park in Johannesburg. Joubert Park is the largest voting district in terms of registered voters in South Africa with over 10 000 voters. Counting at the voting station ended at 10h20 today.
Currently we are capturing the results of an average of approximately 830 voting districts per hour.
I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the 218 000 election officials, along with the tens of thousands of party agents and observers who have worked through the night – and who continue as we speak - to count, verify and capture the results to bring them to an expectant nation here at the National Results Centre and at our 9 provincial centres.
We who are warm and well-fed here should not forget the hard work which is happening in many places including tents and other temporary structures under more difficult circumstances with less light, comfort and warmth.
I would also like to extend our thanks to the South African Police Services who continue to safeguard this entire process.
In this regard, we have been informed of community protest action in Alexandra in Johannesburg which may be threatening election staff and party agents in that area. Community policing personnel have been deployed along with political party leaders to speak to the community in an attempt to calm the situation.
We also had reports of a voting station in Tzaneen, Limpopo which was ambushed by unknown assailants who had posed as voters towards the end of the voting period last night. They entered the station and attacked the police on duty, election officials and party agents and damaged voting materials.
Two people have been arrested and the police are investigating the incident. Counting of votes at the station has not yet started.
Then we also received news of two shootings in vicinity of voting stations in KwaZulu-Natal in Kwadukuza where one person was killed and in Kwamashu where another person was shot. Police are investigating.
Other incidents which have been reported to us and which we are investigating are the following:
- A ballot box containing 16 special votes was found by police – apparently alongside a road in Springs in the East Rand. Police are investigating the matter and have taken a statement by the area manager concerned.
- Ballot boxes contained votes which had already been counted and captured were being stored at a school in Brakpan which was broken into overnight. This incident is also being investigated by police.
Ladies and gentlemen these remain isolated incidents which we are taking extremely seriously and along with the police and party liaison committee partners are investigating.
Overall, however, I think we can all agree that the process is going extremely well and we can be very proud once again of our nation and our democracy.
