Cape Town – Despite minor glitches with the ballot papers and identity scanners at two voting stations, voting got off to a smooth start across the Western Cape on Wednesday.
This is according to the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) provincial head, Courtney Sampson, who briefed the media at the province’s Results Operations Centre (ROC) in Century City in Cape Town.
“The first hour of an election day is a very difficult one because that is the time where you have to make sure that everything is working as it should be.
“We have had two years of planning and many, many months of making sure that everything runs smoothly.
“We are relatively satisfied with what the staff has been doing on the ground,” he said.
Sampson said there was just under 18 000 people working on the elections in the province on Election Day.
The IEC was largely satisfied with how voting went when voting stations opened their doors to registered voters.
He said there was an incident at the Stellenbosch Municipality whereby the printers had made an error and sent incorrect ballot papers to a specific voting station.
“What [IEC officials] have been able to do was to use the ballot papers from the adjoining voting station and share it together with the other voting station so that people can continue voting,” he said.
He said that he has sought permission from the national IEC office to proceed to print more ballots for the Stellenbosch voting stations to avoid ballot papers running out.
Political parties had also been consulted and the problem was under control, he said. – SAnews.gov.za
