INDEPENDENT Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) CEO Sy Mamabolo announced on Friday that the commission was looking at the possibility of having two registration weekends for the 2024 national and provincial elections, which he said might be held on August 5, 2024, with the earliest date being May 8, 2024.
He said analysts were predicting the 2024 elections to be a “watershed election”, and were calling for it to be well managed.
“If this is the case, this means that the preparations for and administration of this election must be well done, so that whoever emerges victorious can claim their victory without the loser saying they lost because of the poor management of the electoral processes,” said Mamabolo.
The last national and provincial elections were held on May 8, 2019.
Mamabolo explained that two registration weekends would maximise the opportunity for people to register and that it would also allow voters an opportunity to amend their details on the voter’s roll.
The IEC has always provided one weekend for election registrations.
Mamabolo said the commission had increased the modalities of registrations with the introduction of an online registration portal. He said the portal aimed to increase the level of registration of young people.
“That electronic intervention does not display the necessity for the two registration weekends, because the registration weekends [are] an equaliser of registration opportunity. You go to a voting station, it takes you five or ten minutes to register. [It] is the same for everybody throughout the country. It is a modality of registration that remains pertinent because of its ability to equalise access to the electoral process,” he said.
Mamabolo explained that the commission required a minimum of 18 months to prepare for elections on a finalised electoral system.
BALLOT PAPER IMPLICATIONS
He said the ballot paper generation system must be realigned.
Currently in the national and provincial elections there are ten ballot configurations – one national ballot and nine provincial ballots. Mamabolo said the current proposed system will increase the ballot configurations to 19. The proposed third ballot for regional elections will increase the number of ballots to be printed to over 70-million.
He explained that with increased contestants – both parties and independent candidates – the ballot sizes would increase.
Meanwhile, he said the national choices before the country had implications for the quality of an election, saying the right to vote became hollow if the mechanical arrangements that were made to deliver that election were defective.
NEWS AGENCIES
