Pretoria – KwaZulu-Natal has once again overwhelmingly topped the registration activity during the final voter registration weekend, logging over 1.1 million visitors to its voting stations.
Briefing media on Tuesday, in Centurion, about the final voter registration weekend, Independent Electoral Commission’s Chief Electoral Officer, Mosotho Moepya, said this represents 30 percent of the total registration weekend activity for the entire country.
He said the next closest was Gauteng with 696 252 visitors followed by the Eastern Cape with 512 655 visitors.
He said the outcomes of the registration weekends were satisfactory as the commission had a target of recruiting one million new voters to register but it reached more than 1.3 million.
“The commission would like to thank the millions of voters who visited their voting stations over two registration weekends in March and April to register and update their address details.
“Over the two weekends, a total of 1 384 254 new voters were added to the voter’s roll bringing the total number of voters to 26 296 601 or approximately 77 percent of the eligible voting population,” he said.
Moepya said a total of more than 6.6 million voters visited their voting stations over the two registration weekends, including 3 581 540 during the past weekend.
“This is almost two and a half times more activity than in the two registration weekends for the 2011 Municipal Elections,” he said.
Over and above, more than 1.3 million new voters visiting the stations, Moepya said 2 253 645 voters (33.74 percent) re-registered in a different voting district, and 3 040 835 voters (45.53 percent) re-registered in the same voting district.
“The Electoral Commission is very grateful for this response. The Electoral Commission is also very grateful to the youth for responding so positively to the call to register with nearly 80 percent of first-time registering voters aged under 30 years old.
“Of the new registrations, 52.54 percent were women compared to 47.46 percent men,” said Moepya.
He said voters can still register and update their registration and address details during office hours at their local IEC offices countrywide until the Municipal Elections are proclaimed at which point the voters’ roll will be closed.
“Proclamation of the 3 August Municipal Elections by the Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) is anticipated sometime in May.
“A list of the address of these offices is available on the Electoral Commission website or from the Contact Centre,” he said. - SAnews.gov.za
