Your ID card is the only ticket into the 4 November local elections

South Africans who are registered to vote and still need an identity document have until Election Day to get one in their hands, and Home Affairs is telling them not to leave it to the last week.

Polling day is 4 November, and a voter can only make a mark with an acceptable identity document. The department lists three: a smart ID card, a green barcoded ID book, or a valid temporary identity certificate. A driver’s licence will not do. Neither will a passport, a student card or a photocopy of an ID.

Those who have applied but not collected are being urged to do so now rather than queue for a document that is already sitting waiting for them.

“Citizens, who still need to replace a lost or damaged identity document ahead of the elections, are urged to make use of Home Affairs offices or the more than 450 participating bank branches to acquire their documents and not wait until the last minute,” a recent Home Affairs statement read.

The department also asked people who already hold a smart ID to push family members, friends and colleagues who do not have one to apply and collect before the vote.

Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber put the stakes plainly. “A valid ID holds the key to democratic participation in the upcoming elections,” he said. “I call upon South Africans to make use of our vastly improved services to apply for, and collect, their IDs without delay.”

The department has been moving smart ID applications into bank branches. In July it expanded its Digital Partnership with Absa, which also included the launch of what it describes as the country’s first bank-based Home Affairs mobile unit. Counting Home Affairs offices, the department says South Africans now have access to around 1 000 locations where they can apply for a smart ID card, nearly five times the number of access points that existed two years ago.

Further expansion is planned before the end of the year to cover adult and minor passport applications, first-time smart ID card applications, and, in what the department calls its next major milestone, home delivery of identity documents directly to citizens’ homes.

Schreiber framed the shift as a break with the old green book. “Through Home Affairs @ home, we are making it easier than ever before for South Africans to replace the fraud-prone green barcoded ID book with the secure Smart ID Card,” he said. “Together, we are closing the chapter on the fraud-prone green barcoded ID book and opening a new chapter of secure, digitalised identity services that deliver dignity for all.”

The green barcoded ID book remains an accepted document for voting on 4 November.

This report is drawn from SAnews (South African Government News Agency), the government’s own news service, which summarises the department’s position rather than reproducing the Home Affairs statement in full: https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/get-your-id-today-make-your-mark-election-day