Question NW445 to the Minister of Home Affairs
15 March 2016 - NW445
Madisha, Mr WM to ask the Minister of Home Affairs
Whether his department is proactively ensuring that in accordance with the ruling of the Constitutional Court the Electoral Commission will be in a position to draw up voters’ rolls for the local government elections this year where the valid addresses of all registered voters will appear as required; if not, why not; if so, what steps are being taken by his department, in conjunction with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, to ensure that wards in informal settlements in particular have identifiable and officially recognised street names and house numbers?
Reply:
The order of the Constitutional Court directs the Electoral Commission to provide a voters’ roll with addresses to political parties contesting elections where such addresses are available. This order affirms a standing statutory provision in section 16 (3) of the Electoral Act (27 of 1998) which provides as follows:
“…………………., the chief electoral officer must, on payment of the prescribed fee, provide copies of the voters’ roll or a segment thereof, which includes the addresses of voters, where such addresses are available, to all registered parties contesting the elections.”
Therefore the judicial and statutory dependency to the provision of a voters’ roll with addresses to contesting parties is where such addresses are available.
The Electoral Commission has nonetheless, taken a decision to proactively procure addresses of voters where such are not on their records. In this regard, a number of initiatives are either underway or about to be implemented. I presented below some of these initiatives:
- A communication campaign was initiated in the period leading up to the voter registration weekend of 5-6 March 2016, for all voters to inspect the voters’ roll with a particular focus on the address details and providing same necessary;
- Re-focusing the communication campaign for the second registration weekend on the 9-10 April to highlight the need for voters to furnish addresses at the registration stations;
- Procuring address data from a variety of data sources such as municipalities, other state agencies and commercial providers;
- Changing the response message on the Short Message System (SMS - 32810) to indicate to voters to furnish address details where such are not on the records of the Electoral Commission; and
- Conducting a voting district based field work to visit persons whose addresses details are not on record.