Voters with no address are the highest in Gauteng, followed by KZN.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has revealed that 1.2 million people who are registered to vote in the 2021 local government elections are without residential addresses.
The commission said this is worrying, with some registered voters entered into the system with incomplete addresses.
IEC boss Sy Mamabolo told Parliament Wednesday this week that the 1.2 million registered voters without addresses represented only 4.7% of the registered voters in their system.
He said they now have 24.6 million South Africans with addresses in their system and were trying to find ways to allow the 1.2 million who have no addresses to be allowed to vote as they can’t “loose their right to vote”.
In 2016, the IEC was ordered by the Constitutional Court to never again have a voters roll that doesn’t have the residential addresses of those who were voting.
“No one is losing their right to vote. At the same time we will have to comply with the Constitutional Court.
“So people will have to furnish an address or the place where they live and if there is no address the sufficient particulars will have to be provided,” Mamabolo told Parliament 7 April 2021.
He said the number of people who furnished incomplete addresses stands at just over 250 000.
But the 1.2 million that the IEC is currently faced with is little compared to the 8.4 million registered voters who were without addresses in the 2016 local government elections.
This caused the Constitutional Court to take the commission to task, ordering it that such should not occur again.
Number of people without addresses per province
– Gauteng – 413 372
– KZN – 190 477
– Eastern Cape – 148 445
– Mpumalanga – 130 342
– Limpopo – 102 756
– Free State – 94 020
– North West – 77 701
– Western Cape – 49 250
– Northern Cape 21 544
Number of people with incomplete addresses per province
– KZN – 62 121
– Eastern Cape – 51 311
– Gauteng – 42 103
– Western Cape – 39 329
– Mpumalanga – 17 229
– North West – 13 321
– Northern Cape – 12 777
– Free State – 10 760
– Limpopo – 3 911
(edited by MLM)
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