Province tops IEC’S verified list
THE NORTHERN Cape, including its capital city Kimberley, has the highest number of people on the voters’ roll who have provided the Electoral Commission (IEC) with their verified residential addresses ahead of the upcoming national elections on May 8.
This was revealed by the Electoral Commission (IEC) deputy electoral officer, Mawethu Mosery, yesterday when he addressed academics and students at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in Pretoria about their state of readiness for the upcoming elections.
Mosery said the IEC has already certified its voters roll which has a total number of 26.7 million voters on the roll, saying it was a slight improvement from 2014.
The IEC had 25.14 million people on the voters roll in 2014.
Mosery revealed that more than 14 million eligible voters for these elections are women and 12 million are men.
“We have a total number of 55% of women on the voters’ roll and 45% are men. Limpopo has the highest number of 59% women on the voters’ roll while other provinces have 55%,” Mosery said.
However, he said more than four million voters will have to produce their residential addresses at the polling stations before they can cast their votes on May 8.
Mosery said the IEC has verified the addresses of 22.4 million voters while 1.4 million of them have no addresses and 2.4 million of them have incomplete addresses.
He said the Northern Cape has the highest number of voters who have provided their addresses for verification.
“The Northern Cape is doing well with the provision of residential addresses by eligible voters compared to other provinces,” he said
According to Mosery, they had difficulties in obtaining residential addresses of voters who were living in former homeland states of Ciskei, Transkei, and those in former homelands of Limpopo and Mpumalanga. The IEC also listed Kwazulu-natal’s rural areas, where they had problems in verifying the addresses of potential voters.
Mosery said a total number of 76 parties were contesting in the elections – 48 of them for the national election while the rest were contesting in various provinces. Gauteng has the highest number of political parties contesting for seats in the provincial legislature (36) and the Northern Cape has the lowest number – 22 parties.
A total of 18 000 candidates are contesting for 826 seats in the national and provincial legislatures in the country.
The IEC also announced that almost 30 000 South Africans living abroad will be casting their votes on April 27 ahead of the May 8 national elections. London has the highest number of voters (9 000) out of a total of 14 800 voters living in Europe alone.
Dubai has the second highest number of South African registered voters and Mosery said the total number of voters living abroad are 29 334 with the majority of them in Europe.
Dubai has 1 542 voters followed by the Hague which has 1 355 eligible voters.
He said because of the number of voters in London, the IEC’S chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo, will visit the city to arrange logistics which would make it possible for people to cast their votes.
Mosery said due to the high number of voters they could not use the facilities at the South African Embassy in London.
According to him the IEC has a similar problem in Joubert Park in Joburg, which has the highest number of voters living in one area, but added that plans were being made for voters to vote at several voting stations.