The Electoral Commission will hold a second voter registration weekend on 3 and 4 February 2024 in preparation for the general elections of the National Assembly and Provincial Legislatures. Accordingly, the Electoral Commission announces its readiness to welcome eligible South Africans at 23 303 registration stations across the country to register or check their details ahead of the elections. Registration stations will operate from 08h00 and 17h00 on both days.
The Electoral Commission held a successful registration weekend in November 2023 and transacted with over 2.9-million South Africans who registered and/or updated their details on the voters’ roll. Registration weekends remain the most accessible modality of registration as affirmed by the yield from the first registration weekend.
The Commission is happy to report the achievement of two historic milestones:
- The first is that the national voters’ roll has, for the first time, surpassed the 27 million mark. In the 2019 NPE the certified voters’ roll stood at 26.7 million. We are encouraged that we have reached this milestone ahead of the second general registration event scheduled for this weekend.
- The online registration platform has proved to be the mainstay of registrations between voter registration weekends. We recorded just under 200 000 new registrations on the registration weekend in November 2023. Overall registration activity in that period is 498 000. Again this is a new feat, never realised before.
“We plan to build on these successes and urge all South Africans to make use of this weekend to register for the elections. We further urge eligible voters to visit the registration stations to inspect or update their registration details, or to do so online.” wrote the IEC on their website.
The forthcoming Voter Registration Weekend will have over 69 718 staff members in service, who have been recruited and trained. The recruitment criteria for electoral staff was conceived in consultation with the National Political Liaison Committee. The names of trained staff have also been shared with Municipal Political Liaison Committees to facilitate objections against those staff members that are deemed unsuitable. Out of the appointed staff, 53 028 are female and 16 690 are male. In addition, 35 640 registration staff are under the age of 35, while 26 475 are between ages 36 and 50. The balance of 7 603 are aged 51 and older. Crucially, 50 213 of the total staff complement are unemployed persons.
Voters are to vote where they are registered
“Our collective goal as a nation is to ensure that every one of the eligible voters in South Africa is registered to vote in the 2024 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. The need for this prior notification is new and comes about as a result of the changes to the law. Details of the modalities of this notification will be outlined after the registration process.”
Registration Stations for the Second Registration
On electoral infrastructure for the second Voter Registration Weekend, the Commission wishes to indicate the following:
- Lease agreements for 23 303 permanent voting stations have been signed and concluded. Of these, 62% are schools, 9.7% are places of worship and the balance of 28% include all other categories such as community halls and other municipal facilities.
- There are a further 959 temporary voting stations across the country. The majority of temporary stations are found in the province of Gauteng at 204, followed by the Free State at 180, and Limpopo at 150. Procurement processes concerning the provision of temporary infrastructure have been concluded. The implementation of temporary infrastructure ensures that electoral services reach even those communities who do not yet have public amenities. Temporary voting stations are, therefore, an important mechanism of extending franchise rights to all citizens.
- There are 33 mobile voting stations.
Voter management devices mainstay technology for registration
The success of the first Registration Weekend was, in the main, because of the efficiencies brought by the voter management devices (VMDs). The VMD is the mainstay technology for the delivery of the registration process. Once again, three business applications will be running on the VMDs during this weekend. These are the Voter Registration, Voting Station Monitoring, and Staff Attendance Register applications. The devices are designed to operate online via a secure private cellular data connection. However, all three applications have been coded to function fully without access to the network – what we call the offline mode – if certain predetermined parameters are met. These include instances when there is insufficient connectivity with the data centre. The interplay between the online and offline modes of the devices will happen without operator intervention.
It is crucially important for each voter to check where they are registered. This is more acute in the light of the general rule that a voter must vote at the voting station at which that voter is registered. To check your registration status there are a number of channels that can be used:
- Our contact centre is fully operational and can be reached on 0800 11 8000.
- SMS your identity number (no spaces) to 32810
- IEC website: https://www.elections.org.za/pw/Voter/Voter-Information
We are pleased to announce that, as of today, voters can also check their registration status and voting station details via our WhatsApp Chatbot on 0600 88 0000.
It’s your democracy, own it!
Published on the IEC website on January 31, 2024
