The voter turnout in the Western Cape stood at 26 percent at around 5pm – four hours before the voting stations closed on Monday.Photo: Leon Lestrade/African News Agency (ANA)
Cape Town – The voter turnout in the Western Cape stood at 26 percent at around 5pm – four hours before the voting stations closed on Monday.
“As at 5 o’clock the turnout in the province was 26 percent. We expect, however, that the percentage will increase,” provincial electoral officer Michael Hendrickse said on Monday night.
“We are hoping it will keep in line with what previous elections were overall,” Hendrickse said.
He said the IEC noted that a low voter turnout could be impacted by a range of reasons including the long weekend, weather and voters choosing not to vote.
“We as the IEC encourage everyone to participate.”
But, Hendrickse urged voters to wait and see the final tally on the turnout, but he hastened to say a low voter turnout in local government elections was a national phenomenon and also happened in other countries.
“Let’s see what the turnout is and compare with other provinces,” he said.
Hendrickse said the weather played a major role in terms of their operations at voting stations.
“We needed to intervene in a number of cases,” he said.
Hendrickse also said there were seven instances of power failure in the City of Cape Town.
“This is not limited to a station per se but an area which the station has been located.”
He explained that the power was restored after it was reported to Eskom and the City of Cape Town.
There were two cases of cable theft that led to some stations being without power.
“We needed to hire generators for our voting stations.”
These happened in Ward 92 in Tafelsig and also Ward 39, affecting Gugulethu Methodist Church voting station.
Hendrickse also said the power outages were a matter of concern to the IEC.
“We tried to do the best in these situations.”
The provincial electoral officer also said they were aware that there were voting stations in the city that still had long queues, less than an hour before closing time.
“Where there are queues at 9 o’clock, the last person in the queue will be allowed to cast the ballot,” he said, adding that there would be a “gate-keeper”.
He noted that the issue of long queues was prevalent in the metro and two areas outside the City of Cape Town.
“We are asking citizens to please bear with us as we go through this.”
Hendrickse dismissed suggestions that there were problems with the shortage of ballot papers.
“There are enough ballot papers. We are ensuring our voting stations have enough ballot papers,” he said.
“We are having enough ballot papers. Where there is a need, we move ballot papers from one voting station to another within the same ward because we don’t want wrong ballots being used.”
Responding to a question about some voters reportedly turned away, Hendrickse said people were turned away if they were not on the voter roll and did not have proof that they had registered.
Asked if he was satisfied with the voting process, Hendrickse said he obviously was not happy.
“With all that has gone with our voting during the course of the day, with the weather and instances where there have been delays, you can’t say I am happy,” he said.
“I am relatively satisfied overall with the fact that we could provide this opportunity in these circumstances to our voter to cast their vote,” Hendrickse said.
“Obviously, there will always be room for improvement. There are lessons to be learnt also in terms of this.”
mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za
Political Bureau