Electoral Commission welcomes signing of the Electoral Amendment Bill

The Electoral Commission has welcomed the signing into law of the Electoral Amendment Bill.

The Commission says the assent by the President provides the necessary legal certainty required to prepare for the National and Provincial Elections which will be held in 2024.

“Such certainty in the legal framework can only augur well for the Electoral Commission, the voting public, possible contestants, observers and other interested stakeholders,” the Electorial Commission said.

The foremost implications of the Act are as follows:

• For the first time individuals who are not associated with political parties will stand as candidates for elections into legislatures and the National Assembly.
• It commits the country to a process of Electoral reform beyond the 2024 elections.

Now that the policy choices for the coming elections have been made, the Electoral Commission will move with deliberate speed to finalise the supporting business applications necessary for the implementation of the Act.

These include, among others:

• Rewriting the Candidate Nomination System to facilitate the participation of independent candidates and unrepresented political parties together with a portal to enable candidates to capture the details of voters who support their candidature;
• Redeveloping the Results System to facilitate the recordal of votes cast in favour of independent candidates and translating these into seats where the relevant threshold is met;
• Updating platforms and mechanisms of liaison with parties to also include independent candidates;
• Reviewing the Political Party Funding legislation in order to include funding of elected independents; and
• Ensuring enactment of consequential amendments and regulations to enable the realization of the objects of the Act.

The Commission has now approved an integrated chart of electoral milestones which contains all activities and timelines that underpin preparations for 2024 National and Provincial Elections. In this regard the Commission wishes to highlight the following:

Independent Candidates

The Act determines the participation of independent candidates on the following basis:

• An independent candidate may be nominated to contest in one or more regions but may only be elected to one seat in the National Assembly.
• An independent candidate may only be nominated to stand in a provincial legislature in a province in which they are registered.
• An independent candidate may only be a member of either the National Assembly or a provincial legislature.
• A prescribed declaration confirming that the candidate has submitted names, identity numbers and signatures of voters who support his or her candidature:
• In relation to the election of the National Assembly, the names must equal 15 per cent of the number of votes required to obtain a seat for that region in the preceding election if contesting only one region o 15 per cent of the highest of the quotas in the preceding election, if intending to contest in more than one region.

Where the 15 percent of the highest of quotas is not achieved, that independent candidate may only contest in the region or regions as determined by the next highest quota met

• In relation to a provincial legislature, 15 per cent of the votes required to obtain a seat in the preceding election, in respect of that province.

Further requirements include:

• Candidates must pay a prescribed deposit. Deposits paid by independent candidates may be different from those paid by political parties.
• Candidates must undertake to be bound by the Electoral Code of Conduct.
• Candidates must sign a declaration that they are not disqualified in terms of the Constitution.
• In respect of provincial elections, candidates must sign a declaration that they are registered in that province.

Registered political parties that do not have seats in any legislature or the National Assembly will have to meet the same 15 percent quota requirement and also pay a deposit.

Ballot Papers

The participation of independent candidates in elections of the National Assembly as a consequence of the signed law, has the following noteworthy implications:

• The amended Act provides for an additional ballot paper in the election of the National Assembly thereby offering voters a non-binary choice of either a party or independent.

The effect of this is that the regional and compensatory ballots are separate (two ballots instead of a single ballot as was previously the case).

The regional ballot for the National Assembly includes parties and independents. The other (national) ballot contains only parties in order to restore proportionality.

The ballots for the regional seats in the National Assembly will be region-specific in a manner similar to provincial legislature ballots.

• The introduction of the second ballot for the election of the National Assembly, results in an increased number of ballot papers to be printed without the corresponding increase in time lines. Thus the ballot printing window remains an immutable 28 days.
• The number of ballot papers for provincial legislature elections remains unchanged at one ballot per province. These will contain the names of parties and independent candidates.

Voter Registration

Ahead of each election, the Electoral Commission undertakes registration drives to register new voters and to enable already registered voters to inspect and where necessary update their registration details. These drives result in updating of the voters’ roll.

For this purpose, the Electoral Commission announces that it will open its network of approximately 24 000 voting stations over the weekend of 18 and 19 November 2023 to register new voters for the forthcoming elections and to facilitate inspection of the roll.

Voting station based registration represents the most equitable manner of equalising access to the vote.

Additional modalities of registration have also been implemented to facilitate continuous registration.

Those with access to the internet may register, inspect and update their details at any time before the proclamation of the elections by visiting www.elections.org.za.

Voters may also visit the local offices of the Commission in each municipality or take advantage of the various activation campaigns that the Commission will undertake in various areas to register and update their details.

Vote where you are registered

In National and Provincial Elections, voters vote at the voting station where they are registered. However, the Electoral Act had provided for an exception.

This exception was intended to facilitate the continued franchise of persons who unavoidably found themselves outside areas in which they were registered on voting day.

However, over time, this well-meaning provision has been misused in a manner that may imperil proper administration of elections and creates perceptions that some voters are able to vote more times than they are entitled to.

The new framework now provides that those who, for unavoidable reasons, are likely to find themselves outside of their voting station of registration, must give prior notice of their intention to vote at a different voting station.

“The Commission reiterates that with the assent of the Bill certainty has now been created in the planning framework for the 2024 National and Provincial Elections. Our time is short and we cannot afford any delay,” the Commission said.

All electoral stakeholders are asked to start their preparations in order to avoid missing immutable electoral timelines.