As the noise of the highveld crickets ascends, so does the buzzing sound of excited politicians inside the IEC results centre.
With the night still young, the promise of won wards and the dread of lost votes lies ahead: it will be a long night, and everyone has their own plans.
Journalists are making coffee and tea at tables scattered around the centre, and some people are still having grilled chicken or fish with lemon sauce for dinner. The malva pudding is good, but the custard is lumpy.
Polling stations have now closed, and party candidates are seated at tables in the main area of the centre.
In the middle of the centre, the Independent Electoral Commission employees are bustling away.
Logistics and infrastructure senior manager Simon Boyle is soon to head to bed — his day began at 6am.
“The night ahead belongs to the IEC monitoring team,” he said. Today, he monitored operations at stations, such as supplies of ballot papers and ballot boxes, stationery and scanners.
Stuart Murphy is in charge of electoral matters for the IEC. He explains that once everyone in the queues has voted and the voting stations close, they become counting stations.
“The result slips are transported to the municipal offices of the IEC,” he says.
“There they are captured and then verified by external auditors. If there are no exceptions that need to be investigated, the results come through to the centre and populate the leaderboard.”
The people he oversees are seated around desktop computers, like red ants in their IEC t-shirts. They have been receiving information about problems throughout the day, working as an operational mini-call centre focusing on operations. They will work in shifts through the night until all the votes have been counted and received. There will be 32 people plus external auditors at any given time through the night.
ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza says his “night is just starting”.
“We are going to have a presence throughout the night. Gwede [Mantashe] will be coming around 8pm.”
The DA’s Ryan Coetzee says, “I think the DA’s done very well; I’ll be brave and say Cape Town [will go to] the DA. Helen [Zille] will be coming at 8:30pm.”
Security guard Mike Mnisi knows that there are “important people” coming, but he doesn’t know who they are because nobody briefed him.
“We are not expecting anything dangerous to happen,” he says. “We will look after the important people. Everything will be fine.”
All that’s left to do now is wait for the votes to come in, when the large bright blue board will start spinning numbers and percentages.
In the meantime, things at the centre remain calm, but slightly electric.