The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) expects an ambitious voter turnout of 66% for 2024’s national and provincial elections, which is 20.1% higher than for the 2021 local and provincial elections.
While the voters’ roll has continued to grow over the past 30 years — 27-million people are registered to vote in 2024 — the turnout has steadily declined since 1999, which had 89.3% turnout to just over 66% in 2019.
A high voter turnout usually indicates an inclusive democracy, while low voter turnout is indicative of people’s distrust in the political system or apathy.
“Between 2021 and the certification of the voters’ roll for this election, we lost no fewer than 800,000 people on the voters’ roll. Even with that net decline, we were able to significantly improve the registration figures to 27.7-million, which is the biggest size of the voters’ roll which we have ever compiled going into an election”, the IEC’s deputy chief electoral officer, Masego Sheburi, says.
In a daytime update on Wednesday, Sheburi said voting had got off to a steady start, with 93% of the over 23,000 voting stations opened.
He added there have been a number of voting stations that delayed opening because of late delivery of materials, delayed escorts by security services or protests by certain community members. In most stations queues had formed before the stations opened.
“Voting also kicked off this morning at correctional facilities across the country. Clear skies and good weather were reported throughout the country. The commission welcomes the message from the government that no load-shedding is forecast for today or the coming days,” Sheburi says.
The rand touched an intraday best of R18.22 to the dollar. By 2.30pm, the rand had weakened 0.46%to R18.3516, with investors keeping a close eye on elections.
According the IEC’s elections timetable, the voting stations close at 9pm on Wednesday, while Friday is the cut-off date for political parties to raise objections. The commission is scheduled the final results on June 2 and on June 6 will be the proclamation of the results and seat allocation.
The highest number of voting stations are in KwaZulu-Natal (4,974), the Eastern Cape (4,868) and Limpopo (3,216).
Nearly 3,000 soldiers have been drafted to work with the police to prevent and combat crime during the elections, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said on Tuesday. His statement came hours after IEC head Sy Mamabolo flagged orchestrated attempts to manipulate the outcome of the polls.
Police arrested three people after a woman reported being threatened when she arrived at a polling station in Limpopo, TimesLIVE reported.
maekot@businesslive.co.za
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