Outcome of final registration weekend for 2016 Municipal Elections
The Electoral Commission would like to thank the millions of voters who visited their voting stations over two registration weekends in March and April to register as voters and to update their registration and address details.
Over the two weekends a total of 1 384 254 new voters were added to the voters’ roll bringing the total number of voters to 26 296 601 million or approximately 77 percent of the eligible voting population.
A total of more than 6.6 million voters visited their voting station over the two registration weekends – including 3 581 540 during the past weekend. This is almost two and a half times more activity than in the two registration weekends for the 2011 Municipal Elections.
Of those who visited voting stations over the two weekends this year:
- 1 384 254 were new registrations (20.73%)
- 2 253 645 re-registered in a different voting district (33.74%)
- 3 040 835 re-registered in the same voting district (45.53%)
This final group was responding to calls by the Electoral Commission to voters for whom no address details were on record to visit their voting station to update their registration and address details. The Electoral Commission is very grateful for this response.
The Electoral Commission is also very grateful to the youth for responding so positively to the call to register with nearly 80 percent of first-time registering voters aged under 30 years old.
Of the new registrations, 52.54 percent were women compared to 47.46 percent men.
Once again KwaZulu-Natal overwhelmingly topped the registration activity during the weekend, logging over 1.1 million visitors to its voting stations – representing 30 percent of the total registration weekend activity for the entire country. The next closest was Gauteng with 696 252 visitors followed by the Eastern Cape with 512 655 visitors.
A breakdown of the weekend’s registration activity as well as a combined breakdown for both registration weekends is attached for further detail.
Voters can still register and update their registration and address details during office hours at their local IEC offices countrywide until the Municipal Elections are proclaimed at which point the voters’ roll will be closed. Proclamation of the 3 August Municipal Elections by the Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) is anticipated sometime in May. A list of the address of these offices is available on the Electoral Commission website or from the Contact Centre.
For media queries:
Kate Bapela
Cell: 082 600 6386
For media interviews: Please email requests to spokesperson@elections.org.za.
Sibusiso V. Nkosi
Electoral Commission- Mpumalanga
Tel: 013 762 0640
Dir: 013 762 0671
Fax: 086 543 9629
Cell: 072 919 0704
Email: nkosisv@elections.org.za
