IEC has 80% target
Registration is over and the elections are not far away
THIS past weekend was the last chance to register to vote in the 2014 General Elections.
The Independent Electoral Commission(IEC) made an appeal to eligible voters to make use of the final weekend to register or to verify their registration for this year’s upcoming national and provincial elections.
According to IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela, more than 24.1 million South Africans have registered to vote before the weekend’s final registration.
This is 76.7% of the estimated voting age population which, according to Stats SA, is 31.4 million.
Included in this figure are more than one million new voters who were added to the voters’ roll during the previous registration weekend held in November 2013.
The current registration percentage for KwaZulu-Natal is 79.3% and will go up once the weekend’s numbers are tallied.
The IEC has set itself a target of 80% on the voters’ roll by proclamation date.
To achieve this goal 1.1 million eligible voters needed to register during the weekend.
It is the youth who provided the greatest opportunity for growth. As of Friday, 22.2% of potential voters aged 18 – 19 were registered which equates to 428 127 out of an eligible population estimated at 1.9 million, and 53.8% of those aged 20 – 29 are registered which means 5 103 401 out of an estimated population of 9.48 million.
However, these figures need to drastically improve if the IEC want to reach its target.
Voters who have registered can check their registration details, including which voting station they are registered at, by SMSing their ID number to 32810.
