1020 voting stations to form part of sample in voter fraud investigation

Published May 10, 2019

Share

Pretoria -  The IEC has confirmed that the Statistician General has identified 1020 voting stations that will form part of a sample which will be used to investigate allegations of voter fraud. 

The announcement comes a day after the commission confirmed it would carry out an audit into the votes and results to ascertain if there were any instances of double voting. 

This year's general elections were marred by allegations of voters being able to cast their vote multiple times after removing the indelible ink. At least 22 people have since been arrested in connection with this. 

All political parties will be given access to the list of stations that will be sampled.  

"This list will be made available to political parties. The Electoral Commission would like to express its gratitude to the Statistician-General for the assistance which it has agreed rapidly and without hesitation to provide," the commission said. 

It was also confirmed at the briefing that 22 people had been arrested in connection with double voting, with deputy national police commissioner General Sehlahle Masemola reiterating that none of those arrested had successfully managed to vote again but were caught in the attempting to vote again. The investigation is still ongoing. 

Vote counting currently sits at 97.33% with Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, Western Cape and North West all completed. The IEC said it hoped to conclude vote counting by midnight. 

A number of small fraction of votes were still outstanding Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. Nationally, 97,55% of votes have been counted. 

It remains unclear when the final results will be announced. 

IOL

Related Topics:

elections2019