IEC making strides in compiling a valid voters roll

THE Electoral Commission has expressed confidence in the strides it has made in making its voters roll valid ahead of next year’s general elections.

The commission briefed the media yesterday on the state of readiness to deliver credible elections, including the attachment of absent addresses of voters on the voters roll.

In 2016 the Constitutional Court declared the IEC’s voters roll invalid and added that its failure to compile addresses of all registered voters was unconstitutional, as it would impair the ability of contesting candidates to canvas voters ahead of the elections.

The ruling was, however, suspended and the commission – having only recorded 34% of addresses of the more than 26 million registered voters – was given until June to fix the voters roll, a deadline which has been extended to the end of this month.

Yesterday IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the commission had made progress in the collection of addresses. “In March, 2016 we had just over 8million people who had complete addresses. As at the end of last month, that number had improved to 21.6 million,” he said.

Mamabolo said of the 7.9million voters with no addresses in 2016, just 1.6million of them still had missing addresses.

In August, the commission approached the apex court asking for the invalidity of its voters roll to be suspended until next year’s elections, as it did not want political parties to challenge the outcome based on the address issue.

IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini said the commission had already met with President Cyril Ramaphosa to discuss the election date, which must be held within 90 days after the term of office of Parliament and provincial legislatures end, which is May 6.

“The president announced his intention to hold elections before the end of May,” he said.

Mashinini said January would be the deadline for the registration of political parties intending to contest the elections and the final voter registration weekend, while certification of the voters roll would take place in February, before the IEC gets candidate nominations in March.

The IEC also introduced its three new commissioners: Mosotho Moepya and Nomsa Masuku, who previously served the IEC as chief electoral and deputy chief electoral officer respectively, and Judge Dhaya Pillay.