Weekly Mail Reporter
DEADLINES for voters to register for the October municipal elections are so tight that polls may be very low if same-day registration is not allowed.
This is the call from Project Vote, a democracy education organisation which this week released findings of pioneering research into voter attitudes to the forthcoming elections.
The research, conducted by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (Case) on behalf of Project Vote, indicates widespread resistance to registration — due to begin this weekend. There is also widespread confusion about new local government structures and disillusionment with a perceived lack of delivery from the government on campaign promises during the April 1994 general election.
The schedule for local government elections puts voter educators up against the wall: about 24-million voters have to be registered on voters’ rolls countrywide in a 90-day period between February and April. This means, for example, in kwaZulu/Natal a steady flow of 80 000 registrations a day and in the Cape metropolitan area, 40 000 a day. After a period of revision, the rolls will be published, new wards will be demarcated and the election campaign proper will begin three months before elections.
If people do not register six months before they are due to vote, they are effectively disenfranchised.
The Project Vote/Case research was qualitative rather than quantitative. Fifteen focus groups were interviewed countrywide during November last year, with an even spread from metropolitan, urban and rural areas and among informal settlement and hostel dwellers. Respondents in nine of the groups were black, four were coloured and two Asian.
Resistance to registration was especially strong among blacks, who comprise almost three-quarters of the electorate, according to Case director Mark Orkin. They do not want a list created that includes their name and address, and think such a list could easily lead to political repercussions. They think registration violates the secrecy of the ballot, which they regarded as critical during the national elections, and cannot understand why voting should be so different now. Even after two-hour sessions, focus-group moderators could not break this hostility to registration.
“My family will be against it — they will doubt my loyalty if I can give away my name and address,” said one black woman respondent from the Free State.
“Why do they want my address?”; “Why do they want to know me?”; “Why do they have to take our names — I’m not voting” were among the questions and objections raised in other groups.
Voters, according to the research, want candidates to earn their votes this time round. They want to vote for local people whom they know and whom they can hold accountable. Here, too, the time frame presents problems. Voters will only know their local candidates in August, but they are expected to register by April.
Some voters are disillusioned because they have not seen change, and others believe the government needs more time.
Project Vote found that a huge public awareness campaign needs to accompany registration if local government elections have any chance of success.
According to Case deputy director David Everatt, once people are informed, they become excited about voting for “local voices” that can give them access to provincial and national government and deliver on day- to-day gripes about water, electricity or roads. A woman in one focus group in Johannesburg, for example, said that: “I want someone I can wake up at 3am and complain to.”
The emphasis, said Everatt, should be on delivery more than democracy this time round. “People are saying we know how to vote now. It’s not that difficult or terrifying. This time we want to know why and what for.”