Administrative and logistical hurdles as well as voter apathy have been cited as among the reasons for the lower-than-predicted voter turn-out at the polls.
A hopeful Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on election day said early indications were that the voter turn-out may match or even surpass the previous election’s 66%.
“The commission planned on receiving as many voters. We estimated that the turn-out may be more than 66%.
“We are happy to report the steady flow. If early indications are anything to go by, we may match or surpass the 66% voter turn-out,” said IEC deputy chief electoral officer Masego Sheburi on Wednesday.
But when the votes were counted, the voter turn-out was confirmed at only 58.64%
Political analyst and elections observer Nkosikhulule Nyembezi said during these elections “it feels so strange to be let down by legislative provisions, regulations, and technology designed to administer the voters roll for such a large part of the election day”.
“A significant downside to these elections is that many citizens in the stations I visited expressed frustration that many factors undermined their human dignity.
“The IEC turned away many voters who ended up not voting. I can relate to this widespread frustration as someone involved in civic and voter education to encourage massive voter registration and high voter turn-out.
“The long lines outside voting stations testify that the citizens came out in large numbers to vote but could not do so because of administrative and logistical hurdles,” said Nyembezi.
Citing an IEC survey on voter satisfaction conducted in partnership with the Human Sciences Research Council, Nyembezi said it found that “fewer people were confident their votes would be counted accurately compared with the 2019 poll and that queuing time at voting stations had increased, relative to more recent elections, and this had a bearing on electoral evaluations”.
“For the first time in 30 years, the IEC has received court papers to set aside election results as various political parties that contested the elections have teamed up to challenge the outcome as null and void. The IEC should have employed experienced and well-trained staff instead of relying on unemployed youth looking for internships,” said Nyembezi.
The IEC did not respond to requests for comment by deadline on Monday
Western Cape ANC MPL Khalid Sayed said they were very disappointed with the low voter turn-out.
“I think it is a reflection on the political environment and on all of us that we need to do better to ensure that voters and residents see a solution to the country’s problems in the electoral system. So while we are disappointed, we have a lot of work to do in the next five years as to how we remedy this situation, particularly in our conduct as public representatives.
“The IEC could have done things much better to encourage voters. But when people see long queues as being a result of technical glitches, they get turned away. The IEC could have done much better to educate voters ... or should have informed people much better when changing addresses and all of those things ... but also, the responsibility is on us as the political leadership,” said Sayed.
DA spokesperson Werner Horn said in their monitoring of the election day, they predicted that the average turn-out would be lower than in 2019.
“We were slightly surprised when the IEC claimed on the day that the long queues at many stations were caused by high voter turn-out. In many ANC-stronghold areas voters did not turn up in high numbers, which is reflected in the lower turn-out figures.
“Some voters clearly left the very long queues that built up due to the slow pace at which voters were assisted.
Some voters were also denied their right to vote as a result of other inefficiencies, like the inability of IEC officials to find them on the voters roll, or errors on the voters roll.
“The IEC had a fairly good communication campaign ... to increase awareness about the election. Station-level inefficiencies, however, contributed to lower turn-out,” said Horn.
GOOD Party secretary-general Brett Herron said the disillusionment of voters with participating in elections could be understood.
“They have been participating but their lives have not changed. This is not the fault of the IEC – they promote participating as much as we can expect them to do so – but it is the fault of politicians who become the governments and then fail to fix the imbalances of the past and to ensure that it is those who live in poverty who get their undivided attention.
“Perhaps the IEC could improve on voter education – that there is power in your vote – because as we saw in the last few days that your vote can be used to vote a disappointing government out of power,” said Herron.
Kuils River resident Keshia Langley said the low voter turn-out was not surprising.
“People are apathetic as their circumstances don’t change despite the democracy already being 30 years old. By now more strides should have been made in terms of restitution and reforming the country, but people are forced to continue living in deplorable conditions.
Political parties just are not heeding to the plights of the people. It is a sad state.
“Queues at voting stations should have been a sign of hope but instead, it just again came down to incompetent directorates who should have been a lot more prepared,” said Langley.
Cape Times