Cape Town – The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says allowing voters to cast provincial votes outside of their home province or while they are overseas would risk the integrity of the voters’ roll.
This comes as Cope and ANC members of the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs today again spoke out at the DA’s decision earlier this month to take the Electoral Amendment Bill to court over concern that it is unconstitutional.
MPs pointed out that the DA should allow the IEC to make its input on technical amendments and allow the parliamentary process to run its course before approaching the courts.
Currently, registered voters will be able to vote at any voting station within their registered province, but those living or travelling outside their home province will not be able to cast a provincial vote – only a national vote.
Briefing the committee, IEC chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya, said if the commission allowed voters living or travelling outside their home province to cast provincial votes, the country would be at the mercy of the postal system as ballots would have to be transported back to each voter’s registered voting station.
It also risked prolonging the time it took for votes to be counted, at a time when there would be a high degree of anxiety among South Africans.
Moepya argued further that while voters residing in a particular province were connected to that province by the wards and municipality they resided in – the only connection of South Africans living outside South Africa to the country is their nationality.
He said though there would be a distortion in the provincial vote created by those outside a province not being allowed to cast a provincial vote, such a distortion would be “insignificant” in the final election results.
“We’re not saying it’s impossible (to allow for provincial votes to be counted if cast outside a voter’s home province), we’re saying it does create a situation that can very easily endanger the election process,” he said.
DA MP Manny de Freitas said his party was turning to the courts as time was running out for the bill to be passed, adding that there were solutions for instance in printing extra provincial ballots and that it had been done in other countries.
The ANC’s Andre Gaum however argued that it would be difficult to assess how many provincial ballots to issue each overseas voting station (to avoid fraud), it would also be difficult to transport them to the various provinces where they can be counted.
However most crucially he said, would be how voters decide on which province to vote for, particularly if they have never voted before.
The IEC meanwhile wants to insert an amendment to allow for unregistered voters living or travelling overseas can apply to register as a voter and make their ballot outside of South African borders.
Moepya said this will allow South Africans to register on an international segment if they have not been registered on the voters roll before.
Responding to the DA’s request for more overseas voting stations to be set up to ensure that all South Africans residing or travelling outside of the country would be able to vote, IEC chairwoman Pansy Tlakula said it would be difficult to secure sites outside of the country’s foreign missions, which is counted as South African territory.
She said the Department of Home Affairs had made sufficient preparations for South Africans living or travelling abroad to register at the various South African missions overseas.
Tlakula said those wishing to cast a special vote abroad would need to bring along a valid passport and their green bar-coded ID or a temporary ID to their nearest SA consulate or embassy.
South Africans living or travelling overseas will be allowed to vote in next year’s election as they were allowed to do so in the 2009 elections, after the Constitutional Court ruled in a judgment in the same year to allow the move. – SAnews.gov.za
