The 2026 Local Government Elections were characterised by shorter waiting times at voting stations and high levels of satisfaction with electoral officials, with 95% of voters expressing satisfaction with the quality of service provided by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
The findings are contained in the Human Sciences Research Council’s (HSRC) 2026 Election Satisfaction Survey (ESS), which assessed voters’ experiences of the electoral process on Election Day.
Briefing the media on the findings, HSRC researcher, Dr Ben Roberts, said 91% of voters spent no more than 30 minutes queuing before casting their ballots, a marked improvement on the 2024 National and Provincial Elections.
The HSRC noted that the improvement in shorter queuing times had reversed the increase experienced in 2024, returning to levels recorded during the 2021 Local Government Elections.
The survey further found that 90% of voters travelled for no longer than 30 minutes to reach their voting stations, pointing to generally convenient access to voting facilities.
“Voting was generally convenient; 90% travelled no more than 30 minutes (not shown), and 91% queued no longer than 30 minutes,” Dr Roberts said at the National Results Operations Centre (ROC) in Midrand.
Satisfaction with the service provided by IEC officials remained high at 95%, broadly consistent with previous elections.
In assessing the performance and conduct of electoral officials, voters gave positive ratings across six indicators, including helpfulness, patience, professionalism, friendliness, trustworthiness and impartiality.
Helpfulness received the highest rating, with 79% of voters indicating that IEC officials demonstrated this quality to a great extent.
Patience and professionalism each received 78%, while 77% rated officials as very friendly.
Trustworthiness received a rating of 74%, while impartiality recorded the lowest rating, with 65% of voters indicating that officials were impartial to a great extent.
The survey also found that 86% of voters, both those with disabilities and those without, considered voting stations accessible to elderly people and persons with disabilities.
This reflected broadly comparable and overwhelmingly positive experiences across the two groups.
However, the findings highlighted areas requiring further attention, particularly arrangements for special groups.
“Most voters viewed arrangements for vulnerable groups positively, although assessments were less favourable for visually impaired voters, pregnant women and voters with babies (due mainly to uncertainty),” the Survey found.
Regarding the voting procedures, 58% of voters said the procedures inside their voting stations were very easy to understand, while 38% described them as easy.
Despite this positive assessment, information gaps remained, with 13% of voters indicating that they had far too little information about voting procedures and a further 13% saying they had too little information.
Eastern Cape voters were the most likely to report having insufficient information, while Northern Cape voters were the least likely.
The survey also found that most voters had little difficulty navigating the ballot papers.
Some 93% of voters said it was easy to identify their preferred political party or candidate on the ballot papers, while 94% expressed satisfaction with the ballot papers.
Voter education also featured in the assessment, with 60% of respondents describing the IEC's voter education campaign as very effective and 28% considering it somewhat effective.
Radio and television emerged as the most useful sources of information and voter education, with 61% of voters rating each as very useful. Social media followed at 59%.
The findings point to generally positive experiences of election administration, particularly in terms of the time taken to vote, the conduct of electoral officials and access to voting stations.
However, the HSRC identified intimidation, impartiality, inclusive voting and information gaps as areas requiring targeted attention to further strengthen the electoral process.
The 2026 ESS was conducted at 300 voting stations nationally, with fieldworkers interviewing randomly selected voters throughout Election Day.
A total of 13 198 interviews were completed across all nine provinces, representing an 88% realisation rate, with a margin of error of less than 1%. – SAnews.gov.za
