More women than men registered to vote during the voter registration drive of January 24 and 25, and 18- to 25-year-olds proved those accusing them of apathy at least partly wrong — 58% of new registrations came from this age group.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Thursday announced the results of the second voter registration weekend before South Africa’s national elections, due to take place in March or April.
It was a bustling weekend for the IEC, with 3 149 880 voters visiting the approximately 17 000 voting stations across the country. The IEC’s call centre handled about 120 000 calls on Saturday and Sunday, and its website recorded 249 036 hits.
The number of new registrations has pushed the voters’ roll to more than 20-million.
The commission on Thursday paid tribute to the large number of young people who registered, but said that there was still scope for improvement, despite the 785 444 new registrations of people aged between 18 and 25 years.
Of the weekend’s registrations, 51% were female, with more women than men registering in all age groups. Before the weekend, the voters’ roll gender ratio was 55% female to 45% male.
On Thursday the IEC could not yet present the number of registrations as a percentage of the population, but instead focused on the levels of registration activity throughout the country.
Gauteng, the Western Cape, the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape showed the highest levels of activity in general — a result of the IEC’s focus on promoting registration in urban areas after the first registration weekend resulted in low numbers for these areas.
The levels of activity specifically for new registrations and re-registrations followed roughly the same pattern, with re-registration especially high in Gauteng and the Western Cape — the two regions between which most people relocate
The IEC pointed out that people who need to vote in another district than the one in which they registered — for example truck drivers and airline pilots — will be able to do so. Voting stations will provide these people with a form to fill in, after which their registration will be verified. They will, however, only be able to cast a national vote.
These special votes for each polling station will be counted separately, to avoid possible accusations of beefed-up numbers of votes for certain stations after the votes have been counted.
South Africans who are eligible to vote but have not registered, still have time until the election date is announced to do so at their local electoral offices.
The Department of Home Affairs will also continue to provide free ID photos and temporary identification certificates until the election date is proclaimed.