‘Double scanned’ voter in Newcastle stands her ground

A few residents of Newcastle arrived at their respective voting stations to cast their votes, only to be denied ballot papers after being told they had already voted.

Seshne Jacobs stood her ground and demanded her right to vote when IEC officials tried to turn her away at the Town Hall this afternoon.

Jacobs said an IEC official scanned her ID at the entrance of the voting station and handed her a slip indicating all was in order. Everything appeared to be going well until she entered the voting station and a second IEC official, who scanned her ID, insisted Jacobs had already voted a few minutes prior.

I even showed them my thumb wasn’t marked with ink and it didn’t seem to matter. I threatened to go to SAPS and open a case. I was afraid with all the fraud going around, that someone could have stolen my identity. I didn’t want to leave until the matter was resolved because I was afraid they were going to take my vote and give it to someone else,” confided Jacobs. “It took an hour for the problem to be resolved and the only explanation they offered was that it was a technical error in their side.”

IEC Regional Manager, Nonhlanhla Mbonane said complaints of this nature are being dealt with on a case-by-case basis. The IEC first checks to see if the voter has a mark on the thumb, which indicates they have voted already and if they don’t, officials check what would lead the system to indicate they have voted already.

“We found this situation is often a result of ‘finger error’. When the voter is entering the voting station, he or she is scanned. Without reading the slip of paper the voter is issued with, our staff will then try to re-scan after the voter has entered the voting station. When you look, the system will tell you the person had already voted a minute ago,” explained Mbonane.

“Voters like that will continue to be issued ballots and will continue to vote, because it just means there was a scanning error; they were double scanned.”