ActionSA has filed an urgent application with the Electoral Court against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for “its failure to remedy the absence of ActionSA’s name” from ballot papers.

This after the party’s name was omitted from draft ballot papers for Gauteng ward candidates.

ActionSA said the IEC’s legal reasoning and decision is patently unlawful and unconstitutional.

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said if the local government elections were to proceed with ballot papers that do not reflect the party’s name, it would be unfair and prejudicial to ActionSA and to voters, making the election not free and fair.

The IEC had until 10h00 on Wednesday to file their notice of intention to oppose the matter or abide ActionSA’s request to the court.

“In the IEC’s current ballot paper, only our logo appears – the party’s name does not appear and an empty space has been left in its place. The implication of this is that ActionSA supporters will be limited only to a candidate name and a logo to identify the party on the ballot, while other parties will have the benefit of their name or popularised acronym appearing,” said Beaumont.

Beaumont argued that the IEC’s decision to exclude ActionSA's name from the ballot paper, based on the Commission's chosen design of the ballot paper, was taken because irrelevant considerations were taken into account or relevant considerations were simply not made.

He explained that it was the party’s contention that it does not have an abbreviated name.

“One of the reasons ‘ActionSA’ was chosen as our name is that it complies with the IEC’s own 8-character limit on abbreviated party names, thus, our party’s name could always be used in full wheresoever it would be required,” he added.

He said the party raised its objection to the draft ballot papers with the IEC, during and after the ballot sign-off held on October 2, however ActionSA was initially informed that the issue would not be addressed as the printing of the ballot papers had already commenced. 

Beaumont further stated that the IEC's assertion that the purpose of the presentation of the draft ballot papers was solely for political parties to sign-off and not intended to remedy defects that may be attendant to the registration of identifiers, is irrational.

The party has affirmed in court papers that there is no legal basis for the Commission to refuse the party’s demand to remedy the “gross omission of ActionSA’s name” from the ballot paper and the party is confident the courts will share this perspective.