Mpumalanga ranked sixth in provincial voter registration performance for the upcoming local government elections.

The province recorded 40 722 first-time registrations and 171 559 voter confirmations on June 20 and 21.

In a press briefing held by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Monday, the commission extended its appreciation to the public who turned out in large numbers during the registration weekend.

The commission’s CEO, Sy Mamabolo, said the IEC achieved two significant objectives during the weekend – continued growth of the voters’ roll and improved registration yield from young people.

“Over the two voter registration days, the commission recorded around 2.9 million registration transactions. This is an improvement from the 1.7 million transactions recorded during the voter registration weekend for the comparable election in 2021,” he said.

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“General voter registration drives ahead of an election serve at least two purposes. The first is to enlist new entrants on the roll. The second is to enable registered voters to inspect their details, and if necessary, to update them to ensure that they are assigned to voting districts in the wards in which they reside.”

Mamabolo said this is significant because in local government elections there is no statutory opportunity for a voter to vote at a voting station at which they are not registered.

He said the ongoing drive to ensure that eligible South Africans are registered and correctly assigned to their respective voting districts has increased the total number of registered voters to 28.5 million. Placed in context, the voters’ roll used in the 2024 national and provincial elections contained 27.7 million voters.

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“In between elections, the roll reduces by 34 000 voters per month, owing principally to mortality. Consequently, since 2024, 1.3 million voters were lost from the roll. The increase in the voters’ roll is attributable to, among others, the efficiencies introduced by voting management devices, which have significantly enhanced the speed of processing voter registration applications, as well as the convenience of the online registration portal.”

The public is encouraged to register, update their details and verify their registration information via the online voter registration portal and to prepare for the second voter registration weekend scheduled for August 1 and 2.