It’s all systems go for voting

The Independent Electoral Commission has trained its officers and is ready for the local government elections. It has several new features this year.
WELL-TRAINED staff will be deployed in all voting stations across the province for the much-anticipated 2011 local government elections.

Sy Mamabolo: Gauteng is ready Gauteng is ready, says IEC provincial commissioner Sy Mamabolo“In an endeavor to strengthen the capacity of voting officials to administer the electoral process with legal precision, presiding and deputy presiding officers have undergone a three-module training programme,” said the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) provincial commissioner, Sy Mamabolo.

He was speaking at a media briefing on 16 May at SABC TV Park’s Renaissance Hall.

The idea of a modular approach to the training was to incrementally build up competencies in voting station administration rather than a one big sweep approach that is replete with imperfections.

A total of 7 507 presiding and deputy presiding officers were trained in Gauteng alone.

“Political parties participating in the municipal party liaison committee have been given the opportunity to assess the impartiality and competency of presiding and deputy officers based on past experiences in the voting stations,” explained Mamabolo.

Giving details on the voting stations, he said they would be opened at 6am. “The province will be operating 2 480 voting stations. Lease agreements with the landlords of permanent facilities have been concluded. In order to ameliorate the long queues that we experienced with national and provincial elections in 2009, we will be implementing for the first time the concept of voting centre.”

Ballot papers
In total, 13 million ballot papers had been printed. There were six million proportional representation (PR) ballot papers for both metropolitan and local councils; there were a further six million ballot papers for ward elections and 900 000 ballot papers for the 40 percent PR component of the two district councils in the province, Mamabolo explained.

This means that there are ballot papers printed for every voter registered. Depending on the category of a municipality, voters will either receive two or three ballot papers.

In the three metropolitan municipalities of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane, voters will receive two different ballots: a proportional representation one, which is yellow, and a ward ballot, which is white.

In local municipalities, there will be green PR ballots for the election of the district council. Mamabolo said there would be a number of new innovations on ballot papers.

They include:

Full-colour ballots;
Security features;
Sequence numbers on counterfoil; and
Braille tactile template for voters with visual impairments.
Voter information
On election day, registered voters must present their South African green, bar-coded identity document at the voting station.

Voters are can only vote at the voting station where they have registered.

Voters who cannot see clearly can bring someone they trust to vote for them. Illiterate voters have the right to get assistance from the presiding officer, watched by two party agents.

When making a mark on the ballot papers, a cross is the best mark to use, but any other mark that makes the voter’s decision clear will be accepted. A tick or any other sign in the box next to only one party’s name, will be counted.

On election day, voters may not wear any clothing that seeks to campaign for any political party. If they fail to abide by the rules and regulations of the IEC, they will be denied access to voting stations.

Anyone who is in the queue by 7pm must be allowed to vote. The presiding officer will declare the voting station closed but must tell people in the queue that they must wait and vote before the officials can go home. No-one new may join the queue after closing time.