Ratepayers body raises concerns over voting station merge
The body says it had discovered that residents who had voted for years at one voting station had been moved to another without communication.
THE chairperson of the Kenville and Sea Cow Lake Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association, Anil Beekrum, has expressed concerns over the merging of two voting stations in what he calls a lack of communication from the Electoral Commission (IEC).
Beekrum said he had discovered on a registration drive that residents who had voted for years at Kenville Primary School on Smithfield Road had been moved to Sea Cow Lake Secondary School on Gum Tree Road without any explanation.
He estimates that the change affects about 1000 prospective voters.
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While both voting stations are just 800m apart, Beekrum cites lack of parking and inadequate capacity as obstacles that could deter potential voters at the upcoming Local Government Elections.
“I’m one of the 1000 voters who have voted for years at Kenville Primary School. It was by chance that we discovered the change as nothing was communicated to us. The issue we have now is the lack of parking available at Sea Cow Lake Secondary. With this change, the IEC is going to need more voting booths.
“In a previous by-election at this very station (Sea Cow Lake Secondary) I had to call Metro Police to move people and vehicles because the road was jammed and no one was able to get in or out of the school. We would have liked better communication as to the reasons behind this change and what prompted it. I fear that many of the residents, who are elderly, will not wait for hours in a line to vote,” Beekrum said.
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Zona Ndaba, the Electoral Project Officer for eThekwini Metro IEC’s office, said the decision to merge the voting stations was based on their closeness.
“Voters were notified through Pamphlet distribution and loud hailing done by the IEC together with community participation. The ward councillor was also notified during the Party Liaison Committee (PLC) presentations at the City Hall on May 12. The voting station was visited to check conduciveness during the Voting Centre Survey Project,” Ndaba said.
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