The local government elections this year are budgeted to cost the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) R2bn but this could escalate to cover the cost of adhering to Covid-19 protocols, according to IEC chair Glen Mashinini.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced the date of the local government elections as October 27. There have been debates that they should be postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the IEC annual report for 2016/2017, the electoral watchdog spent R1.2bn on operations for the 2016 local government elections, which is much lower than this year’s budget because of the one-off investment the body is making in voter management devices.
Briefing parliament’s home affairs committee on Friday, Mashinini said the big items for the budget were the acquisition of voter management devices, which at a cost of R627m would consume 31% of the budget; staff at R546m (27%); and registration and voting material at R196m (10%).
Acquisition of the voter management devices was an investment that would revolutionise the management of the voters roll and voter registration, capture addresses and allow for the live tracking of participation on election days, he said.
They would ensure, for example, that voters do not vote more than once at different voting stations. The previous devices were not integrated.
Chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said 40,000 devices are being acquired.
Mashinini said: “This one-off investment will significantly enhance the [election’s] integrity and close the loopholes we have faced in previous elections.”
He told MPs that the budget cuts over the next three years — which are due to the fiscal crisis and have affected all departments — mean that there will be one registration weekend ahead of the 2021 local government election instead of the normal two weekends. However, there will be ongoing registration at municipal offices.
Mashinini said he discussed the registration date with political parties and hoped to make an announcement this week.
The R546m required for staff would cover the 58,000 temporary staff required for registration and 207,000 for voting day at 23,000 voting stations around the country as well as those involved in vote counting.
Despite the budget cuts Mashinini assured MPs that the IEC has managed to produce a balanced budget and that the cuts will not compromise the elections. “We will be able to deliver the elections with the resources and the savings that we have identified,” he said.
Mashinini added that the IEC is in talks with the Treasury for additional funding to cover the unfunded costs of adhering to Covid-19 protocols, especially on voting day. This could be accommodated in the medium-term budget policy statement in October. The total budget for the IEC for 2020/2021 is R2.3bn.
Mamabolo said the IEC is looking at expanding the scope of special votes by giving them to the aged and those with co-morbidities to reduce congestion and Covid-19 risk at voting stations. Voter education would mainly be through radio and social media.
IEC CFO Dawn Mbatha noted that due to funding pressures the IEC had not been able to give inflationary increases to electoral staff appointed for the registration and election events. “The last rates adjustment was ahead of the 2016 local government elections,” Mbatha said.
“The period of employment for fixed-term expansion staff that are appointed for elections has been decreased by one month for the local government elections and the 2024 ... elections to accommodate reduced budgets.”
She noted that budgets over the next three years are under pressure as funds had to be redirected towards Covid-related costs. These new Covid-19 health protocols had to be implemented in all the IEC’s 272 offices nationwide and for its more than 1,000 employees.
The initiative to conduct an e-voting pilot project is not funded. It is intended to increase efficiencies and make counting and capturing of results easier.
Additional costs are also anticipated as a result of the Constitutional Court ruling that the Electoral Act is unconstitutional in that it does not allow individual candidates to stand for national and provincial elections but requires them to do so through membership of political parties.
Parliament has been given 24 months to revise the legislation.
“The financial impact of this ruling, though as yet unknown, is expected to be significant,” Mbatha said. It would require rewriting business applications, retraining staff, the possible delimitation of voting districts and the possible reconfiguration of the IEC’s local offices.
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