Pretoria - The Electoral Commission of South Africa has made a final urgent appeal to voters to use the last hours of the registration weekend to ensure they are ready to vote on 3 August 2016.
“Voting stations will remain open until 5pm today. Thereafter registration will only take place at local IEC offices during office hours until the proclamation of the Municipal Elections,” the commission said in a statement released on Sunday afternoon.
The commission reported that as at 11am, just nine voting stations – all in the Vhembe area in Limpopo - had not opened.
“Last ditch engagements are underway between the Electoral Commission, community leaders and security forces to open the last nine voting stations to allow all residents the opportunity to register for the upcoming elections scheduled for 3 August.
“The remaining 22 608 voting stations throughout the country reported open and operating smoothly. Early indications of voter turnout captured from about 70% of stations showed that over 1.2 million voters visited voting stations yesterday [Saturday] to register, re-register at new voting stations or re-register and provide updated address details at their existing voting station,” the Electoral Commission said.
The commission added that from tonight, when voting stations close, registration officials will dock the “zip zip” scanners from each station to download the scanned ID numbers of all visitors to stations.
“This information will be combined and collated at provincial and national offices and the Electoral Commission hopes to be able to indicate by mid-week the numbers of new registrations and updated registrations.”
At the same time all REC 1 registration forms and REC AS supplementary forms (used where voters do not have formal addresses),will urgently be couriered to the national office where a team of data capturers is working 24/7 to scan and capture the voters’ details including address details to be included on the final voters’ roll for the 2016 Local Elections.
The Electoral Commission thanked all the voters who visited their voting stations on Saturday and during March to register and update their registration and address details. – SAnews.gov.za
