IEC: No foul play, ballots fell from truck

Forensic experts have found that ballot papers accidentally fell from a truck near Nelspruit and the credibility of the elections was thus not compromised by the incident, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said on Tuesday.

IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela said the ballot papers were considered invalid unless they received the IEC secret stamp.

“This stamp is only put on the reverse side of the ballot paper just before the ballot is issued to the voter,” Bapela said.

Nine hundred out of 1 000 ballot papers that fell off of a Mbombela municipal truck near Nelspruit on Sunday had been recovered.

The IEC was alerted to the incident by Jakkie Geldenhuys of Nelspruit and reported the matter to provincial police.

The provincial police commissioner assembled a task team to investigate and flew forensic experts from police headquarters in Pretoria to Nelspruit.

This team interviewed all involved including the truck driver, his assistants and the warehouse officials.

The team also visited the scene where the ballots were found.

“After consultation with the task team and forensic experts, the provincial commissioner is satisfied that there was no foul play,” Bapela said.

“It would appear that the ballot papers in question fell off the truck.”

There was no risk of the ballot papers being fraudulently used, as most of them had been recovered and they bore no IEC official stamp.

“They also have serial numbers on the counterfoil and can thus easily be blacklisted.”

The IEC thanked Geldenhuys and his wife “for their civic conscience and praiseworthy action of collecting ballot papers found along the road”.—Sapa