Despite wide-ranging grievances against the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), voters polled by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) have expressed overwhelming confidence in the commission, saying they were happy with the service it provided during the municipal election on November 1.
This as IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo defended the commission on Wednesday, shielding its integrity from criticism from disgruntled voters and political parties.
The grievances that have been raised with the IEC include problems where registered voters did not appear on the voters roll. Voters who had registered a change of address were also unable to cast their vote as a result of the new information not being captured and IEC staff not been adequately trained.
There were also problems with the IEC’s voter management system (VMD), which it had introduced for the first time in this election, against the advice of many political parties; and undertrained and “incompetent” presiding officers were another problem raised by political parties. There was an arrest for ballot-stuffing by a presiding officer in KwaZulu-Natal.
In a 10am media briefing on Wednesday, the HSRC, which is known for large-scale surveys that inform policy direction in the country, released its findings on the election satisfaction survey, which showed that voters were generally happy with the voting experience and the IEC in general.
The survey, which was aimed at determining the opinions and perceptions of voters regarding the freeness and fairness of the electoral process, sampled 300 voting stations across the country. There were 23,000 voting stations around the country.
Benjamin Roberts, a research director at the HSRC, said 89% of voters indicated that they trust or strongly trust the IEC in general, while only 8% were neutral, 2% were distrusting, and 1% were uncertain.
He said 96% of voters expressed general satisfaction with the “quality of services rendered by electoral staff to voters”, while 3% expressed a neutral position and 1% was dissatisfied.
According to the survey, 80% of voters found the IEC officials extremely helpful, 79% found them to be patient, professional (78%), honest (78%), interested in their jobs (78%), and impartial 69%.
An overwhelming majority of sampled voters, 95%, felt that the election procedures were free, with 94% being of the opinion that the election procedures were fair.
The survey found that 84% of voters were completely or “very confident” that their vote would be accurately counted. Roberts said only 1% said that they were “not confident at all” in the vote counting process.
Regarding Covid-19, 92% of voters were convinced that the IEC had done enough to protect voters from the pandemic at their voting stations.
HSRC’s Narnia Bohler-Muller said the survey tested two things. “We didn’t ask anybody who they voted for. We asked about their experience of voting at the voting stations. We also asked them, do they believe the election was free and fair,” she said.
“Ninety-five percent of South Africans who voted believe the elections were free and fair. It’s about the voice of voters and not [about] people who did not vote,” said Bohler-Muller.
Based on the survey, the HSRC found that the voting public was “overwhelmingly confident” that the 2021 local government elections were both free and fair.
“As with previous national and provincial as well as municipal elections, voters provided an overwhelmingly positive evaluation of the management performance of the IEC and the conduct of officials at voting stations. These voter evaluations point firmly to the continued integrity of elections in the country,” the HSRC said.
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