Scramble to plug holes in voters roll

Commission fears outcome of next year’s election could be imperilled

THE Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has moved to plug any holes that political parties may use to dispute results of next year’s elections over its failure to capture addresses of all registered voters.

In papers filed at the Constitutional Court by its chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo, the IEC said it needed at least until November 2019 to correct addresses on the voters roll.

In a ruling in June 2016, the country’s apex court told the IEC its failure to record voters’ addresses was inconsistent with the constitution and invalid.

The court gave the IEC two years to ensure it had addresses of all 26 million voters on the roll.

Failing to achieve this, the IEC needed a further 17 months. The 2019 general elections would have happened by that time.

Mamabolo said in the papers such a time frame would allow the commission more time to reduce the number of uncaptured voters’ addresses.

The extension would also “ensure that the national and provincial elections due to take place in 2019 are not in any way imperilled by any party seeking to rely on the missing addresses as a basis to challenge the electoral results,” said Mamabolo.

Despite spending R287 million on the campaign to acquire addresses, the IEC revealed its projections were that more than 5.6 million addresses would remain missing by the time of the 2019 elections.

It has budgeted an additional R44.7m in the 2018/19 financial year for the campaign.

But still, “the number of incomplete/generic/missing addresses cannot realistically be materially reduced further before the 2019 national and provincial elections are held,” said Mamabolo.

This shortcoming would open results to be challenged by parties, if the Constitutional Court does not grant the sought extension.

“If the period of suspension is not extended, there is a real risk that parties dissatisfied with the outcome of the 2019 electoral results will seek to challenge the outcome of the elections by relying on the incomplete/generic/missing addresses,” Mamabolo said.

“Even if such challenges were ultimately to fail, this could imperil the public credibility of the election results.”

There appeared to be a correlation between the number of informal communities in a province and the number of registered voters without addresses.

Said Mamabolo: “Gauteng (655) has the highest number of informal settlements, followed by KZN (468) and then the Eastern Cape (261).

“The high number of informal settlements further explains the historical high number of registered voters without addresses in these provinces.

“The commission therefore needs more time to work with municipalities to see if the number of registered voters without addresses cannot be significantly reduced.”

The DA and the IFP have indicated they would oppose the IEC’s application.