The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on June 22 revealed during a media briefing at Riverside Office Park in Centurion, that it was impressed with the improved voter registration turnout held on June 20 and June 21.

The IEC CEO, Sy Mamabolo, said the commission achieved two significant objectives through these voter registration weekends.

“This includes the continuous growth of the voter’s roll and the improved registration figures from young people.”

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Mamabolo noted that over the two days of registration, the commission recorded 2.9m registration transactions.

“This is an improvement from the 1.7m transactions recorded during the voter registration weekend for the comparable election in 2021.”

The CEO highlighted that general voter registration drives ahead of an election serve two purposes: enlisting new entrants on the voter’s roll and enabling registered voters to inspect their details, update them, and ensure they’re assigned to vote in the districts and wards in which they live.

This is significant because in local government elections, there is no statutory opportunity for a voter to cast their ballot at a voting station where they are not registered.

Mamabolo added that the ongoing drive to ensure that eligible SA’s are registered and correctly assigned to their respective voting districts has increased the total number of registered voters to 28.5m.

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“If we place this in context, the voters’ roll used during national and provincial elections in 2024 contains 27.7m voters. In between elections, the roll reduces by 34 000 per month owing principally to mortality.”
Consequently, since the elections in 2024, 1.3m voters were lost from the voter roll.

Mambolo noted that the increase in the voter roll is attributable to the efficiencies that were introduced by voter management devices, which have significantly enhanced the speed of processing voter registration applications, as well as the convenience of the online registration portal.

The CEO added that the commission was encouraged by the positive response of the youth.

“Youth in the 16-29 cohort accounted for 785 000 of total registration activity, which represents 27% of the 2.9m recorded transactions. The youth also dominated in the new registration category of the total new registration, which is 477 000, and the youth made up 80% of this.”

Mamabolo concluded that the figures indicated that youth-focused campaigns are finding resonance with young people and that young people are far from being apathetic.

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