Your last chance to register to vote

30 March 2016

 

If you have not yet registered to vote, you have another opportunity to do so – so you can exercise your democratic right, starting with the forthcoming local government elections.

 

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says 1.86 million people re-registered at its 22 570 voting stations during the March 5-6 registration weekend. There were also 692 000 new registrations, of which 184 000 were of young people aged between 18 and 19, who were registering for the first time.

The final registration weekend ahead of the municipal elections will be on April 9-10. If you are not registered, you will not have a direct say in who runs your ward or municipality after the polls, expected to take place by mid-August.

The IEC says the number of registered voters between 18 and 19 stands at 388 846. The commission expects more young people to push the number of registered voters to above the current 25 535 726 on the voters’ roll during the final round of registration.

According to the IEC, there are at least nine million people eligible to vote but are not registered. The Department of Home Affairs recently revealed that 226 000 smart and 68 000 barcoded green identity documents were uncollected from its branches across the country.

Municipal elections are held every five years to elect councillors who will be responsible for governing your municipality for the following five years. The councillors are there to serve the City and ensure the provision of services in their areas.

If you need details of your ward councillor, go to: https://www.elections.org.za/content/For-voters/who-is-my-councillor-/ or if you are a registered voter you can SMS your ID number to 32245 (charged at R1) and you will receive a text message of who your current ward councillor is.