By Johnathan Paoli
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is considering what action to take after a political party allegedly stormed a counting station in the Northern Cape, disrupting the election process and tearing at least 100 ballot papers as the country continues to collate results from the 2026 Local Government Elections.
Speaking on Thursday evening at the national results operations centre in Midrand, IEC deputy CEO Masego Sheburi said the incident occurred at Bongani Community Hall in Douglas, where party members allegedly interfered with ballots before counting had begun.
“A local party stormed the counting station at the point where ballots were laid on the table for verification before counting commenced. Not only did they storm the counting station, they laid siege to it and interfered and tore at conservative estimates at least 100 ballots when 1,300 ballots were cast at that voting station,” Sheburi said.
He said the matter had been referred to the Commission to determine how the votes cast at the station should be treated and what consequences should follow for the party involved.
Sheburi also confirmed two incidents in Mpumalanga in which the Commission authorised the relocation of voting or counting stations to safer facilities following interference.
The developments come as the IEC works towards finalising the capturing, verification and auditing of results, with chairperson Mosotho Moepya cautioning political parties and the public against treating provisional figures as final.
As at 5pm, more than 60% of the country’s 66,073 results had been captured, while 40,202 results slips had been scanned and 32,238 had undergone independent auditing.
The Commission said the results collation process was expected to be completed by the weekend.
Moepya emphasised that the current process should not be confused with ballot counting, which had largely been completed.
“I saw a little scroller saying we have counted about 40 percent. Most of the counting if not all of it is completed. If there’s any counting that is taking place those are issues that the Commission we’re dealing with and having to give decisions on. What we are doing it’s the process of collating and capturing those results into the result system. It’s not like 60 percent of the country continuing to count,” he said.
The IEC also addressed concerns about political parties disputing results after their agents had initially signed the results slips at voting stations.
Moepya said there was no automatic entitlement to a recount simply because a party was unhappy with its performance or had lost by a narrow margin.
He explained that party agents were not legally compelled to sign results slips, although the law encouraged the practice.
“It cannot be that someone says it’s not correct and simply say, let’s redo this. But to the extent that they have a valid reason for that to happen, there’s a process of objections that will accommodate them and that issue would be looked at,” he said.
Sheburi said parties had sufficient information to lodge objections before the 5pm Friday deadline, as their agents were permitted to photograph results slips at voting stations and compare them with figures captured by the IEC.
He added that parties would not automatically lose their right to object if results were finalised after the deadline, as they could apply for condonation.
Meanwhile, Moepya said the IEC’s enhanced issue tracker had resolved more than 1,000 cases since special voting began on Monday.
The system allows political parties, candidates and electoral officials to report problems affecting the election process.
The Commission said 65 of South Africa’s 213 municipalities had completed the capturing, scanning, auditing and exception processes, representing 31%.
The Northern Cape was leading municipal completion at 81%, followed by the Western Cape at 56%, while Gauteng had yet to complete the process in any of its nine municipalities.
The IEC said all figures remained provisional until objections material to an election had been finalised.
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