KZN voting districts affected as IEC redraws boundaries

More than 100 new voting districts have been created as South Africa gears up for the 2024 general elections.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Monday announced that a recent revision of voting district boundaries, otherwise known as re-delimitation, has given rise to 23 296 voting districts compared with 23 148 for the 2021 local elections.

This increase of 148 districts comes amid the IEC’s efforts to increase voter access in national and provincial elections.

While new voting districts have been established, some have been disestablished, and others have changed shape.

“This increase in voting districts, however slight, implies increased access and convenience to voting for voters,” said chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo.

Voting districts are not political boundaries, but are the creation of the IEC for the purposes of electoral efficiency and planning.

Mamabolo indicated that the electoral commission will embark on a campaign of targeted communication and re-registration of voters affected by the voting district boundary changes.

The campaign will run until Friday, 27 October, ahead of voter registration for the forthcoming elections.

By law, eligible voters must be registered in the voting district in which they ordinarily reside, to participate in elections.

“Nationally, there are 1 925 affected voting districts identified for this campaign, the majority of which are in KZN (774), the Eastern Cape (332) and Limpopo (296),” said Mamabolo.

To find out if your voting district boundaries have changed, voters are encouraged to check their voter registration status on the IEC’s Voter Portal. Visit www.registertovote.elections.org.za, or SMS your ID number to 32810 to get a notification of the current voting district and station on record for you.

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