IEC needs cash to clean up voters roll

The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) has asked the Treasury for about R140m to conclude the massive project of recording the addresses of citizens on the voters roll, as ordered by the Constitutional Court in 2016.

With a general election looming, it is key that the voters roll is updated to meet constitutional requirements. This is so as to avoid challenges to the validity of the vote.

The 2019 national election is being billed as the most hotly contested since 1994.

The IEC has rolled out the first phase of the project, which involves obtaining the addresses of about 3-million voters for whom it does not already have addresses.

While the Constitutional Court deadline for the commission to fix the voters roll is June 2018, the project is a mammoth one requiring new technology to iron out. There is also the tricky task of linking each voter to their voting district.

“It is a huge project for SA and the end product is likely to improve transparency and the overall fairness of the electoral process,” said acting chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo, who is charged with overseeing the clean-up of the voters roll in line with the court judgment.

Mamabolo said he was confident that the IEC’s systems and processes would deliver free and fair elections, despite the heightened competition between parties.

The IEC was boosting its conflict-management mechanisms to limit violence and tension ahead of the polls.

Mamabolo confirmed that long-serving commissioner Terry Tselane’s two terms would end before the 2019 poll and the vacancy would have to be filled ahead of the election.

“Our focus at all times is to run elections within the legal prescripts and all we can ask from political players is to ensure that they are prepared to observe the country’s electoral laws,” he said.

He said the commission had stabilised and the appointment of a permanent chief electoral officer was under way.