IEC chairman Glen Mashinini
THE Independent Electoral Commission yesterday hailed the turnout, particularly by young people and women, at the weekend’s voter registration drive.
At a briefing in Pretoria‚ IEC chairman Glen Mashinini said the high number of potential voters who registered was an indication that South Africans remained committed to democracy.
“The commission is pleased to report that more than three million voters visited the voting stations to register for the first time‚ to reregister and to update their details‚” Mashinini said.
The registration turnout was more than double that recorded during the first registration weekend for the previous municipal elections in 2011.
It was a 23% increase over registration activity during the first registration weekend in the 2014 national and provincial elections‚ the IEC said.
Of the 3 097 194 voters who visited IEC stations:
- 692 730 were new registrations;
- 1 086 958 were reregistrations in different voting districts; and
- 1 317 506 visited to confirm and update their registration in the same voting district.
Of the new registrations‚ 544 552 (78.6%) were under 30.
“This means that there has been a significant response by young persons to the call to register‚” the IEC said.
Almost 54% of the new registrations were women.
This trend applied to all provinces except the Northern Cape, where there was almost a 50/50 split between men and women in respect of new registrations.
KwaZulu-Natal (166 112 or 24%) and Gauteng (156 331 or 22.5%) together accounted for almost half of all new registrations.
KwaZulu-Natal had the highest overall registration activity at 864 295 (approximately 28% of the national total) followed by Gauteng (526 580) and the Eastern Cape (519 674)‚ which each contributed 17% of the total activity.
Officials said registration would continue at IEC offices during office hours from Monday to Friday until the voters’ roll closed on the day the elections were proclaimed.
A final registration weekend will take place on April 9 and 10.
The post Voter registration hailed a success appeared first on HeraldLIVE.