THE Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) are in the final stretch of the counting process with 84% presently completed. Latest figures show that of the 23 696 voting districts, 19 992 districts have been counted and verified. In the Durban South, all three wards (64, 66 and 68) are yet to be fully counted.

Also read: DA preliminarily wins three Durban South wards

Remaining districts

In Ward 64, St Raphael’s Special School, Montclair Senior Primary School and Montclair Community Hall are the three outstanding voting districts that have not been counted. There are eight voting districts in total.

In Ward 66, St Gerards Daycare is the only voting district outstanding, all five other voting districts have been counted and verified.

In Ward 68, the IEC’s live dashboard shows that all nine voting districts have yet to be counted and verified.

Delays in eThekwini on the dashboard

The IEC CEO Sy Mamabolo addressed the concerns of eThekwini still not reflecting changes on the IEC results dashboard, attributing the delays to the size of the ballot.

“The reality of the situation is that in all the metros the ballots are quite long. The practical implication of that is that as it takes longer to count it will similarly take longer to capture. In respect of all eight metros, the result capturing process will not be as expeditious as we may want to present merely because of the sheer size of the ballot papers,” said Mamabolo.

Deadline for objections

Political parties have until 17:00 today (November 6) to submit any objections that could be material to the results of the election. The objections must be submitted in writing to Objections@elections.org.za, accompanied by the required details, reasons and supporting sworn statement or affirmation.

When to expect the announcement

While there is no confirmation yet on when the official results of the Local Government Elections will be announced, IEC deputy CEO for Electoral Operations Masego Sheburi said that once the objections are dealt with by the commission, they will be in a position to indicate when they will announce the final results.

“The commission as we indicated has seven days lawfully to declare the result. The commission does not want to keep the country in angst and for that reason will release the results as soon as all objections have been dealt with. Lawfully the commission cannot release or declare the results before 17:00 this afternoon,” he said. 

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