Municipal Elections: No Special Votes

Farrel — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 17:05:00 -0600

The IEC has stated that in next years local municipal elections there will be no special voting. That is if you can not physically get to the polling station where you are registered you will not be able to vote.

But here’s a telling quote from IEC official Mawethu Mosery

We know that many people will suffer, but there is nothing we can do because special voting during local government elections is administratively impossible

Oh for pete’s sake it’s not “administratively impossible” because plenty of other countries manage to do it with no problems. Here’s how it works:

Have voters who will not be able to physically vote call an IEC hotline to ask for a postal voting card. Some identity verification is done (fax copy of ID, go to IEC office etc etc).
IEC sends a voting card with a return envelope to voter and explains that the card must be returned by the 15th April.
Cards returned on time are counted, which should not take long at all seeing as they’re expecting 200 000 people to be affected by these rules, and the voters are made ineligible to vote on March 1st (to avoid double voting).
Updated voters rolls are distributed to local election polling stations by 28th April.
Normal municipal voting takes place as per normal with postal votes being added to the totals.
Democracy prevails!

So when can I expect my call up to IEC HQ?

Politics.za: Municipal Elections: No Special Votes

Municipal Elections: No Special Votes