Durban – Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) deputy electoral officer Mawethu Mosery said the two-day voter registration which took place on November 18 and 19 received good feedback from voting stations and online platforms.
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Mawethu Mosery said the IEC was impressed with the online registration team which did exceptionally well in capturing voters.
“In 2021, we had a challenge in new technologies in terms of registering voters and this time the team held their ground and did what we had wanted them to do back in 2021. We were able to register seamlessly,” he said.
He said the IEC activated 2.9 million people during the two-day registration.
The IEC said the innovations and efficiencies introduced by the Voter Management Device (VMD) had increased the speed at which voter registration applications were processed.
With the VMD, the details of voters who visited voting stations at the weekend have now been processed and captured on the voters roll.
“Before the introduction of the VMD, it would have taken months to capture address details of voters following a registration event. The VMD processed 834 474 live transactions, while 1 872 352 transactions were captured and later processed. This is testament to the soundness of providing for a mode that enables the VMD to operate in varied connectivity environments,” said the IEC.
Mosery said: “The outcome is quite impressive when it comes to young first-time voters if you look at the almost 600 000 recorded – 80% are young first-time voters while 20% consist of older citizens who were triggered to participate,” he added.
Voters are urged to check their 2024 national elections registration status online at https://registertovote.elections.org.za or at their local IEC office, or visit the IEC website, www.elections.org.za
Mosery said there would be another registration weekend.
“Our online platform is still operating and we do expect voters to continue using the platform to register. After closing the voting stations at 5pm on Sunday, we still received over 10 000 people on the online platform who were updating and registering,” he said.
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