IEC Emphasizes Commitment Over Accurate Results Capturing

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) doubled down its commitment to accurately capture the votes counted in the 2024 National and Provincial Elections.

During a briefing at the National Results Operation Centre (ROC) in Midrand, Gauteng on Thursday evening, IEC discussed the latest updates on the vote capturing and verification process after the General Election held on May 29 (Wednesday).

IEC General Manager Granville Abrahams said that 55.6% of the votes had been recorded in the system, explaining that the new developments were not appearing on the ROC leaderboard because the commission was still verifying them to ensure accuracy.

"To achieve accuracy, we have various processes, the first one being the capturing of the results. The results slips have been received after being checked, [as well as being] scanned and audited," Abrahams said, SA News reported.

Furthermore, Abrahams said the counting process was expected to take longer this time because there were three ballots instead of two in the National and Provincial Elections: the National Ballot, the Regional or Province-to-National Ballot and the Provincial Ballot.

He noted that the results will continue to trickle in throughout the night, noting that the commission have planned the results announcement on Sunday, which normally would have happened on a Saturday.

"That is a positive sign from the smaller municipalities. Based on what we have on the system, we are sitting on a 58.69% voter turnout, so we are hovering just below 60% of voter turnout, with bigger stations' results still to come in," he said.

The commission mentioned an incident where a ballot box, which had already been counted, disappeared while being transported from the Matamzana Dube School voting station in VD 43412767, KZN282, uMhlathuze.

The IEC asked people in and around Ward 14 uMhlathuze, KwaZulu-Natal, to keep an eye out for the IEC-branded ballot box.

"The Commission is required to retain ballot boxes for a period of six months before disposing of them. We are quite eager to get back that ballot box so that it can be placed in storage," Abrahams said, adding that those votes have been counted and they have been recorded on the results slip.