IEC to voters: spot a fake election claim online, send it to Real411

The Electoral Commission of South Africa has told voters to report suspicious election content online to Real411, warning on its official X account that elections can become targets for the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

The commission’s post, published on 5 November 2026, opens with a familiar line, “Don’t believe everything you read”, and says the reminder matters more than ever during election season. It gives no examples of the content it has in mind, no figures on how much suspect material it has seen, and no indication of which election or which part of the country prompted the warning.

The practical instruction is the substance. Voters who see something suspicious online are asked to report it to Real411, the platform the commission links to directly in the post.

The commission does not say in the post what happens to a report once it is filed, how quickly reports are assessed, or what action it can take against the accounts behind false claims. It also does not set out how voters should check a claim before reporting it.

What the post does establish is the commission’s own position: that election season raises the risk of false and misleading content circulating online, and that it wants the public feeding suspect material into a reporting channel rather than passing it on.