Day one of the country’s special voting has been marred by a number of delays, including taxi strikes, service delivery protests and voting material not reaching polling stations on time, leaving about 107 of the 435 voting stations across the country closed.
This was announced by the Electoral Commission of South
Africa (IEC) during a media briefing at the National Results Operations Centre,
at the Gallagher Convention Centre on Monday.
The IEC’s deputy chief electoral officer Masego Sheburi
said the commission was working with stakeholders to get the voting stations
open by tomorrow (Tuesday).
Sheburi said despite the hiccups, they were happy with the
voter turnout and further urged South Africans to continue to head out - in
their numbers - to vote on Wednesday.
As of 2pm today (Monday), Sheburi said an estimated 201,794
voting station visits of special votes were processed in 22,626 service points.
“About 624,593 voters will be visited by 62,000 officials
over the two days, from the Electoral Commission, accompanied by political
party agents and observers, where they are available,” he said.
Sheburi reminded the voters to have their identity
documents (IDs) as a requirement for participation.
He mentioned that the special voting process is subject to
all the security and integrity protocols of normal voting including scrutiny by
party agents and observers where present.
“All special votes collected are stored securely overnight
on May 27 and 28 and will be transported to voting stations on May 29, to be
opened, reconciled, and added to the ordinary ballots cast before counting
begins,” he said.
As May 29 draws closer, the commission warns South Africans
to watch out for misinformation and phishing scams on social media and other
digital platforms. IOL
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