Two women held after voting material taken from Ngcobo police station

Two women were arrested on Tuesday after voting material was allegedly collected at Ngcobo Police Station in the Eastern Cape by people impersonating an Electoral Commission (IEC) official.

According to the police account, the two suspects arrived at the station in the early hours of Monday morning and collected the material, saying they had been sent by the Presiding Officer. The Presiding Officer was in the queue at the station at the time and had not sent anyone to collect anything.

The suspects were identified before they left the station and the voting material was confiscated. Both women have been arrested and processed, and a case has been opened under Section 68(d) of the Municipal Electoral Act 27 of 2000, which prohibits the impersonation of an IEC official.

Eastern Cape Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Vuyisile Ncata, said the police would not tolerate interference with the electoral process. “The arrest of the two suspects demonstrates our commitment to upholding the integrity of the elections,” Ncata said. “Anyone who impersonates an IEC official will face the full might of the law.”

The account is carried in a summary published by SAnews (South African Government News Agency) and not the case docket itself, so the sequence of events and the identities of the two women rest on the police statement as reported there. The document does not say what voting material was involved, how much of it there was, which election it belonged to, or where the material was being taken. It also does not name the two women or say whether either has appeared in court.

The case now sits with the courts under the Municipal Electoral Act. The source material records the arrest and the charge and nothing further on the timetable.