More than 600 000 people visited voting stations on the first day of the final voter registration weekend.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) deputy chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya said that going on the preliminary figures uploaded from 8000 of the 20 864 voting stations early on Sunday, the IEC believed that 40$ of those who visited voting stations were new registrations.
He said that on Sunday 12 voting stations could not be opened because of flooding in the Northern Cape, Free State and Limpopo.
He expected that Sunday would be busier than Saturday. The IEC hoped to have 900 000 new registered voters by the end of the weekend, to ensure that there are a total of 24-million registered voters for the May 18 local government elections.
Moepya said that until the election date had been published in the Government Gazette, people could still register to vote.
On Saturday the chairperson of the IEC Brigalia Bam said she expected the election date to be published in the Government Gazette in the coming week.
Moepya said that by Wednesday the IEC should have the final tally of people who had registered for the election. — Sapa