1.2 million approved special voters never cast a ballot, IEC figures show

About 1.23 million South Africans who had been approved to vote early in this week’s local government elections did not cast a special ballot on 2 and 3 November, according to Electoral Commission figures.

The commission approved 2.66 million applicants for special voting. Of those, 1,425,942 recorded a special vote by the close of the two-day window, IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya said. That is a turnout of about 54 percent among approved applicants, leaving roughly 46 percent, or about 1,234,058 people, who did not use the opportunity.

As Sunday World reported on 4 November, the shortfall amounts to more than 1.2 million unused special votes. The commission’s figures put the ballots actually cast at about 4.9 percent of the 29.2 million names on the national voters’ roll, and the unused applications at about 4.2 percent of it.

Special voting is not the same as turning up on election day. Every one of the 2.66 million applicants had to ask the IEC for approval in advance, either to vote at a station on the designated days or to be visited at home. Ordinary registered voters can still decide on the day whether to go.

Most of the special ballots, 974,852, were cast at voting stations. Another 451,090 were collected through home visits, where electoral officials travel to applicants who cannot reach a station. That is 68.4 percent at stations against 31.6 percent at home, or more than two station ballots for every home visit.

The commission’s national totals do not settle where the gap sits. They do not show whether approved voters failed to present themselves at stations or whether officials did not reach home-voting applicants, and the IEC has not broken the shortfall down by province or by voting district.

Moepya described the numbers as preliminary. “These are preliminary indications which will be finalised later tonight,” he said, and the commission said it would complete its reconciliation later on Tuesday night.

He also said the commission had already passed the number of special votes cast in the 2021 municipal elections, which he called an equivalent contest. “We’ve already exceeded and are doing very well in comparison to 2021,” Moepya said. The IEC did not give the 2021 figure at the briefing, so the two elections cannot yet be compared directly on turnout or on how many approved applicants did not vote.

The 1.23 million approved applicants who did not vote early may still vote on Wednesday if the normal election rules allow it. The commission did not say at the briefing how many of them would be able to reach their registered stations, given that many applied for a special vote precisely because they expected to be away or unable to travel on election day.

Special ballots are not counted separately. Moepya said they have been stored and will be counted with the election-day ballots after voting stations close on 4 November, and the station results will be tallied and announced as part of the overall result for each station.

Wednesday’s local government elections will therefore be the first point at which the scale of the special-vote shortfall can be read against the votes that are actually counted.