Some political parties in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature have welcomed the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) announcement that the much-awaited E-Voting system will not be applied in the next local government elections and the general elections. 

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo announced on Thursday at the full sitting of the provincial legislature in Pietermaritzburg that the new system, which is used by many countries around the world, was not yet ready for use in South Africa. 

“In the next local government elections (which will be in 2026 or 2027), we do not intend to implement electronic voting,” said Mamabolo.

He said there were expectations that the online voting, which he said was expected to excite younger voters because of their access to technology, would start in the next elections. 

However, he said the IEC was still engaged in a policy discussion for E-Voting to initiate “at some point in the future”.

It was still not certain which year the local government elections would take place, as the current term of the councillors would end on November 1, 2026. Thereafter, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa would have 90 days to announce the election date.

The IEC would meet five members from each party on Friday at the Edward Hotel in Durban to discuss the E-Voting policy document.

Explaining the importance of E-Voting, IEC’s provincial electoral officer, Ntombifuthi Masinga, said this was because of the changed political environment as a result of the increase in the number of election contestants, which had forced an increase in the size of the ballot paper.

She said the IEC was still looking at what type of E-Voting would be suitable for the country. But she insisted that ballot papers would also be used where network connection is a problem.

She said in preparation to launch the E-Voting, not any time soon, the IEC had commissioned the Human Science Research Council to conduct a study on the issues that would need to be taken into account when discussing using electronic voting.

“As witnessed in the 2024 elections, the ballot papers have become far too lengthy, and that has put a lot of demand in terms of the infrastructure that we need to produce ballot papers. 

“If we want to entrench ourselves as a pre-eminent body in election management, there is no way that we can ignore accelerating transformation in the digital space and the kind of technology that we can introduce into the electoral environment to try and improve efficiencies at the voting station level,” said Masinga.

She said the IEC had commissioned several studies to explore options of electronic voting since 2014, and made proposals in Parliament. 

“We wanted to pilot on by-elections and see what comes out of it, but that was rejected at the time because of cost issues. 

“But that does not mean we will stop as the IEC. We have been studying a lot of countries that have tried different modalities of electronic voting. At some point, we had a delegation of political parties that went to Namibia to observe how the electronic voting works,” said Masinga.

She said the IEC felt that right now, the time was right to facilitate the discussion to introduce the technology, which she said would improve voting efficiency. 

However, DA MPL Timothy Brauteseth cautioned the IEC that E-Voting lacked a paper trail, which can be used to prove ballot-counting irregularities.

“Even in democracies where they use electronic voting, one of the big weaknesses is the lack of a paper trail. 

“Even in the modern world, going old school is a good thing because if you are contesting results, with a paper-based trail, you can literally pull out a ballot and count again.

“With electronic voting, it is very, very difficult to find a paper trail,” said Brauteseth.

uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP)’s Mphikeleli Mthethwa said E-Voting carries a risk of cybercrime, especially in South Africa, where the IEC had to investigate what went wrong after the 2024 elections. 

“We are in a very critical time in South Africa right now, where we are almost changed in the political landscape. The timing of E-Voting would be very difficult for us to trust that it would be done in good faith. 

“How then would you tell South Africans that we are on top of cybercrime when we are struggling with Home Affairs and cybercriminality that is happening there, in the banking industry, or anywhere, as we are just new in the internet world,” said Mthethwa. 

Another MKP MPL, Slindile Seme, warned that the technology would subject the country’s elections to foreign interference. 

However, IFP MPL Bonginkosi Kunene said the country should embrace new technology. 

“I want to caution the IEC on creating the perception that digitalisation is impossible if that is implemented. I recalled that when we first had cellphones, people were too scared that if you put it too close to your ears, it would interfere with your brain. 

“We must embrace technology because it has become very efficient to handle things,” said Kunene. 

Speaker Nontembeko Boyce said even the provincial Parliament would soon start using digital technology when MPLs vote. 

“When you want to do the benchmarking at the end of the year, don’t go far from us because very soon, we will start using E-Voting in the House. The system is advanced on our side,” said Boyce. 

bongani.hans@inl.co.za 

Source link