IEC looks to overseas printers for bigger ballot papers

The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) is considering international companies to print ballot papers for next year’s national elections.

The Human Sciences Research Council released its findings on the IEC and voter patterns and confidence at the

University of KwaZulu-Natal yesterday.

The commission said local printing companies did not have the capacity to handle double-column ballots.

KwaZulu-Natal electoral officer Ntombifuthi Masinga said this was prompted by the signing of the amended Electoral Act which requires an added column for independent candidates on the ballot.

“We have already scanned the environment for the printing capacity of this country and the type of ballot paper we are likely to end up with.

“The printing industry has demonstrated they do not have that capacity and we are looking abroad to printing companies able to produce the kind of paper we need for the ballot paper,” she said.

The Act was signed into law on April 17, but has already faced threats of legal challenges.

Masinga said the Act would make slight modifications to the electoral system instead of the drastic changes expected.

“We expected there was going to be pushback from sectors of society that expected to see a drastic change, but it was not possible in the time frame parliament had to do this job.”

The parliamentary processes that had to be followed from when the court ruling was made in June 2020, and the challenges the consultation process faced, made it impossible to make wholesale changes to the electoral system in time for next year’s elections by the time the bill was passed into law last month.

Masinga said the 400-member legislature was made up of 200 seats assigned based on the list of candidates provided to the IEC by parties at national level and 200 on the regional list seconded by provinces.

In future, the legislature will be divided into 200 seats assigned to political parties while the 200 regional seats will be split between political parties and independent candidates.

“The independents are going to feature in the national ballot, [but] will only contest the 200 [regional] seats because the other 200 are reserved for political parties.”

This means voters will have three ballots for next year’s elections: one for provincial elections and two ballots for the national legislature featuring parties and regional candidates.