The Electoral Commission will hold a second voter
registration weekend on 3 and 4 February 2024 in preparation for the general elections
of the National Assembly and Provincial Legislatures. Accordingly, the
Electoral Commission announces its readiness to welcome eligible South Africans
at 23 303 registration stations across the country to register or check
their details ahead of the elections. Registration stations will operate from
08h00 and 17h00 on both days.
The Electoral Commission held a successful
registration weekend in November 2023 and transacted with over 2.9-million
South Africans who registered and/or updated their details on the voters’ roll.
Registration weekends remain the most accessible modality of registration as
affirmed by the yield from the first registration weekend.
The
Commission is happy to report the achievement of two historic milestones:
- The first is that the national voters’ roll has,
for the first time, surpassed the 27 million mark. In the 2019 NPE the
certified voters’ roll stood at 26.7 million. We are encouraged that we
have reached this milestone ahead of the second general registration event
scheduled for this weekend.
- The online registration platform has proved to be
the mainstay of registrations between voter registration weekends. We
recorded just under 200 000 new registrations on the registration weekend
in November 2023. Overall registration activity in that period is 498 000.
Again this is a new feat, never realised before.
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We plan to build on these successes and urge all South
Africans to make use of this weekend to register for the elections. We further urge
eligible voters to visit the registration stations to inspect or update their
registration details, or to do so online.
The forthcoming Voter Registration Weekend will have over 69 718 staff members in service, who
have been recruited and trained. The recruitment criteria for electoral staff
was conceived in consultation with the National Political Liaison Committee.
The names of trained staff have also been shared with Municipal Political Liaison
Committees to facilitate objections against those staff members that are deemed
unsuitable. Out of the appointed staff, 53
028 are female and 16 690 are
male. In addition, 35 640 registration staff are under the age of 35,
while 26 475 are between ages 36 and
50. The balance of 7 603 are aged 51 and older. Crucially, 50 213 of the total staff complement
are unemployed persons.
Voters are to vote where they are
registered
Our collective goal as a nation is to ensure that
every one of the eligible voters in South Africa is registered to vote in the
2024 National and Provincial Elections. It is, therefore, apposite
that, ahead of the second voter registration weekend, we remind voters of the
general rule in elections. That is, a person votes at a voting station where
they are registered. The only exception to the general rule is that a voter may
vote outside of the voting district of registration only if they have first
notified the Commission by the date which will be regulated by the Election
Timetable. The need for this prior notification is new and comes about as a
result of the changes to the law. Details of the modalities of this notification
will be outlined after the registration process.
Registration Stations for the Second
Registration
On electoral infrastructure for the second Voter Registration
Weekend, the Commission wishes to indicate the following:
- Lease agreements for 23 303
permanent voting stations have been signed and concluded. Of these, 62% are schools, 9.7% are places of worship
and the balance of 28% include all other
categories such as community halls and other municipal facilities.
- There
are a further 959 temporary voting stations across the country. The majority of
temporary stations are found in the province of Gauteng at 204, followed by the
Free State at 180, and Limpopo at 150. Procurement processes concerning the
provision of temporary infrastructure have been concluded. The implementation of
temporary infrastructure ensures that electoral services reach even those communities
who do not yet have public amenities. Temporary voting stations are, therefore,
an important mechanism of extending franchise rights to all citizens.
- There are 33 mobile voting stations.
Voter management devices mainstay technology for
registration
The success of the first Registration Weekend was, in
the main, because of the efficiencies brought by the voter management devices
(VMDs). The VMD is the mainstay technology for the delivery of the registration
process. Once again, three
business applications will be running on the VMDs during this weekend. These
are the Voter Registration, Voting Station Monitoring, and Staff Attendance
Register applications. The devices are designed to operate online via a secure
private cellular data connection. However, all three applications have been
coded to function fully without access to the network – what we call the offline
mode – if certain predetermined parameters are met. These include instances
when there is insufficient connectivity with the data centre. The interplay
between the online and offline modes of the devices will happen without
operator intervention.
Voter registration out-of-country
The international segment of the voters’ roll for out-of-country
registrations stood at approximately 18 000 South Africans ahead of the registration
weekend out-of-country. Following this registration weekend, this segment of
the roll now stands at 29 318 voters.
Out-of-country registrations continue until proclamation via the online
registration facility that the Electoral Commission has developed and which is accessible
through the website https://registertovote.elections.org.za.
|
Rank
|
Continent
|
Country
|
Mission
|
Registered Voters
|
|
1
|
EUROPE
|
UK
|
London
|
9373
|
|
2
|
EUROPE
|
NETHERLANDS
|
The Hague
|
2855
|
|
3
|
EUROPE
|
IRELAND
|
Dublin
|
1306
|
|
4
|
ASIA
|
UAE
|
Dubai
|
1090
|
|
5
|
OCEANIA
|
AUSTRALIA
|
Canberra
|
1075
|
It is crucially important for each voter to check
where they are registered. This is more acute in the light of the general rule
that a voter must vote at the voting station at which that voter is registered.
To check your registration status there are a number of channels that can be
used:
We are
pleased to announce that, as of today, voters can also check their registration
status and voting station details via our WhatsApp Chatbot on 0600 88 0000.
It’s your democracy, own it!
ISSUED
BY THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION
Ensuring
free, fair and credible elections
For
media queries: Please contact Kate Bapela on 082 600 6386
For
media interviews: Email requests to [email protected]
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