Staff Reporter.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has launched the Results Operation Centre (ROC) ahead of the local government elections next week.
The IEC was briefing the media in Tshwane on Tuesday to announce the state of readiness for voting day on Monday.
During the media briefing, IEC chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo said the ROC is “a window that facilitates the transparency impulse which is at the core of the electoral project”.
The national ROC will be supported by nine other provincial results centres as well as over 200 local capturing sites spread throughout the country,” he said.
The 2021 local elections will take place on 1 November and will mark South Africa’s sixth municipal elections since the dawn of democracy in 1994.
Mamabolo said there are 26.2 million citizens who are registered to participate in the local elections.
In the previous municipal elections that were held in 2016, approximately 26.3 million voters were registered.
There are more than 1.1 million, Mamabolo said, approved special votes, which closed on 4 October.
A special vote allows a registered voter who cannot travel to their voting station on the day of the election to vote earlier because they are either physically infirm, disabled or pregnant, or cannot vote at their voting station on election day due to other reasons.
Mamabolo revealed that Gauteng has the highest number of registered voters of 23.6% followed by KwaZulu-Natal (20.79%) and the Eastern Cape (12.4%).
“The biggest age band of the voters roll is 30 to 39 years old at 25% followed by 40 to 49 years old at 21% and in the third place comes ages 20 to 29 at 16.73%,” he added.
He also indicated that the voters roll coverage stands at 67.9%, which is based on the estimated voting age population of 38.5 million.