The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) announced its readiness to hold the second voter registration this weekend, ahead of the 2024 elections, lauding a voter registration roll that has surpassed the 27-million mark.

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo briefed the media on Wednesday on preparations and noted that the online registration platform has proved to be the mainstay of the registrations in between the general registrations weekends.

The commission recorded just under 200 000 new registrations since the registration weekend in November last year. Overall registration activities in the period stood at 298 000.

“In the 2019 national and provincial elections the certified voters roll stood at 26.7-million. We are encouraged that we have reached this milestone of 27-million people on the voters roll ahead of the second registration weekend scheduled for this weekend,” he said.

Mamabolo highlighted that Gauteng saw 6.3-million registrations; KwaZulu-Natal has 5.5-million; Eastern Cape with 3.3-million; Western Cape with 3.2-million; Mpumalanga with 1.9-milllion; North West has 1.7-million registrations; Free State with 1.4-million and Northern Cape with 637 000 registrations.

He said the gender demography remained the same with 55% of persons on the voters roll being female and 44% being male.

He highlighted that the biggest age group on the voters roll is between 30 and 39 at 6.7-million registrations, followed by the 40 to 49 age group at 5.9-million. He added that person aged 50 to 59 accounts for 4.5-million voters and young persons between the ages of 20 and 29 nine make up 4.1-million voters.

Mamabolo urged South Africa to make use of this voter registration weekend to register for the elections, urging eligible voters to visit registration stations to inspect or update their registration details or to do so online.

He noted that the voter registration weekend will have over 69 000 staff members who have been recruited and trained, with more than 53 000 being female and over 16 000 being male.

The IEC said its collective goal is to ensure that every eligible person in South Africa is registered to vote in the national and provincial elections.

“It is, therefore, apposite that ahead of the second voter registration weekend, we remind voters of the general rule in elections. That is, a person votes at a voting station where they are registered. The only exception to the general rule is that a voter may vote outside of the voting district of registration only if they have first notified the Commission by the date which will be regulated by the election timetable,” said Mamabolo.

He added that the need for this prior notification is new and comes about as a result of the changes to the law.

OUT OF COUNTRY VOTER REGISTRATION

The IEC highlighted that the international segment of the voters’ roll for out of country registrations stood at about 18 000 South Africans ahead of the registration weekend outside of South Africa.

Following the registration weekend for out of country citizens, this segment of the roll now stands at 29 318 voters. The UK has 9 373 voters; Netherlands has 285; Ireland has 1 306; United Arab Emirates has 1 090 and Australia has 1 075 voters.