South Africa
Collection of voter addresses continuing─── 15:24 Tue, 14 Jul 2020
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has assured Parliament that it continues to make progress in sourcing the physical addresses of voters.
In 2016, the Constitutional Court declared the IEC’s failure to obtain and record all reasonably available voters’ addresses on the national voters’ roll as inconsistent with the constitution.
The IEC briefed Parliament’s home affairs committee on Tuesday on its preparations for next year’s local government elections.
Chairperson, Glen Mashini, told MPs that the commission has been making progress in collecting addresses for the voters roll.
He said addresses for 24.1 million voters have been updated from the previous 8 million.
This constitutes around 90% of the voters’ addresses.
About 26.5 million South Africans are registered, according to the IEC.
The commission's deputy CEO Masego Sheburi said 1.1 million voters have incomplete addresses, while 1.2 million do not have any form of address.
The majority of voters without addresses are from Gauteng with 419 550, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 204 564 and 151 157 in the Eastern Cape.
"All those countrymen and countrywomen who are registered on the voters roll, but for who the electoral commission does not have an address are still entitled to vote and participate in the elections,” said Sheburi.
"But there will be a different process to facilitate their vote so that we do not imperil the outcome of the elections.”
Meanwhile, Mashini also assured MPs that preparations for the elections are well underway.
The IEC has previously hinted that the elections may be delayed due to Covid-19.
Mashini said local elections can only be held within 90 days after the current term for municipality councils comes to an end.
"And that 90-day window starts on the 4th of August 2021 and ends on the 1st of November 2021.
"In terms of section 24.2 of the Structures Act, the minister of Cogta (Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma), which is the minister responsible for local government, is required to proclaim the date on which the 2012 elections will be held following consultation with the electoral commission.”
Mashini said consultations with the minister have already begun.
