JUST weeks after confirming the merging of two voting stations, the Electoral Commission has seemingly reversed its decision.

Two weeks ago Northglen News interviewed chairperson of the Kenville and Sea Cow Lake Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association, Anil Beekrum, who had discovered about 1000 prospective voters had their voting station changed without any communication.

Voters who had been voting 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.

Also read: Ratepayers body raises concerns over voting station merge

The voting stations are just 800m apart.

At the time 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.

However, it now seems that decision has been reversed, much to the delight of residents in the area.

Beekrum, who expressed delight at the announcement, had a few questions on the issue.

“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. When the merge was initially announced, we as the ratepayers body raised objections because of the lack of parking available at Sea Cow Lake Secondary. We also raised this with our PR ward councillor Jacques Poupard. Our question now is will the residents who were moved from Kenville Primary School voting station to Sea Cow Lake Secondary be set back automatically or will they have to register and manually change their voting stations,” he said.

Also read: Ward 34 councillor joins ActionSA

Ward councillior Andrew Akkers also confirmed the reversal of the decision.

“Following concerns raised by several residents from Kenville and Sea Cow Lake regarding the IEC’s decision to close and merge the Kenville Primary School voting station with Sea Cow Lake Secondary School, the matter was formally taken up with the IEC. It has been confirmed at an IEC Party Liaison Committee meeting that Kenville Primary School will be reinstated as a voting station,” he said.

The IEC did not respond to media queries questioning why the decision had been reversed.

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