Willem Delport of Salt Rock writes:
Allow me to register my disappointment regarding my visit to the polling station at Sizani Primary School in Umhlali on voting day.
The whole process took longer than 2 hours, most of which was spent standing in the sun.
There was no dedicated queue for persons with disabilities or the elderly.
What really upset me most is that the voting station was not wheelchair-friendly.
When a friend of mine arrived, we, the waiting voters, had to assist him in his wheelchair to get up the 2 steps onto the temporary container – and assist him out again.
Is it OK for the IEC to treat voters with disabilities with such disrespect?
Although I was issued with a label from the zipzip machine, which indicated my names and the exact serial number on the voters’ roll, the single polling officer took an unexplainable long time to simply locate my number and name.
No wonder that the queue went right around the soccer field.
In the polling booth there was not a pen nor a pencil to mark my vote.
I had to request a pen from another voter.
Simple, basic organisation skills and empathy towards voters were clearly not on the priority list of the IEC staff.
As a retired public servant (no, not government official) my apologies to our disabled and elderly citizens.
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