The Electoral Commission’s Chief Electoral Officer, Sy Mamabolo, says the majority of the new voters, who came out in their numbers this past weekend to register to vote, were women.
“There were 490 520 voters registering for the first time. Of the new voters registrations, over 400 000, which is 82% of voters, were under the age of 30 and approximately 54 percent were women,” said the CEO Mambolo.
The CEO was speaking at a media briefing on Tuesday on the outcomes of the voter registration drive, which the IEC held over the weekend.
According to the commission, over 2.76 million citizens visited their voting stations over the past weekend to either register as new voters or to update their registration.
Of the 2.76 million voters who visited their voting stations, over 1.3 million used the opportunity to re-register in their current voting district and 885 758 used the opportunity to change their registration to a new voting district.
An estimated 300 000 voters, who registered this past weekend, are said to fall in the 2.8 million whose addresses were not populated in the IEC’s records ahead of the registration weekend.
“The voters’ roll now sits at 26 250 939 voters, which is estimated to be approximately 75% of the eligible voting population based on Statistics South Africa’s voting age population estimates,” said Mamabolo.
Voter registration according to provinces
Tallying up its numbers, the commission said Gauteng saw the majority of new registrations at 23.69%, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 18.78% and Limpopo with 17.03.
Although Gauteng churned out the most new voter registrations, it had the lowest overall registration.
“Despite the high number of new voter registrations over the past weekend, Gauteng has the lowest overall registration at 67.3%. The Eastern Cape is the province with the highest level of registration at 87%, followed by the Free State at 82.2% and KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Northern Cape at 79%,” said Mamabolo.
Online registration
Voters are also proving to be tech savvy with the IEC reporting a spike in its online activity, with over 50 000 registered voters using the website and the IEC app to check and update their address details.
Mamabolo urged voters to continue using the app to verify whether they are correctly captured on the voters’ roll.
“The online facility at www.elections.org.za and our App remain available 24 hours a day for registered voters to check and update their address details. The average duration spent online or on the app is just less than six minutes,” he said.
The IEC thanked voters and its stakeholders who ensured that the voter registration drive was a success.
“Our thanks especially to voters themselves, political parties, media and civil society organisations, NGOs, faith-based organisations and traditional leaders and all other stakeholders, which promoted and highlighted the campaign and provided key information to voters,” said Mamabolo.
Mamabolo assured the public that the commission would continue with its door-to-door and SMS campaigns, urging voters to visit their IEC offices to ensure they meet the 30 June 2018 deadline set by the Constitutional Court.
Eligible voters can still register to vote by visiting their nearest IEC offices. To update their address on the voters’ roll, voters can either visit the IEC offices or visit the website on www.elections.org.za. – SAnews.gov.za
