“Why do we vote?” U3A members familiar with the voting process might have been surprised to hear the question at a recent talk delivered by IEC vice-chair Janet Love at Settlers Park Hall.
Love a former ANC parliamentarian and Human Rights Commissioner, explained to a captivated audience that there were many parts to the voting process that needed to be unpacked.
“Many of the things are familiar so I won’t dwell on things that are part of the facts that you already know. So I will just give an overview of what’s involved in putting an election together,” said Love.
The former liberation activist reckoned most of her audience probably had a sense of what happened at a voting station but “there was a lot that went on behind the scenes to get it to that point”.
“It starts with registering parties on an ongoing basis but at the time the election is proclaimed within 24-hours registration [of parties], can no longer happen for the purposes of that election.”
“This registration is really something that has to happen before the elections … and, once an election is proclaimed we have 24 hours on the basis of which we have to proclaim a time table. The time table really sets out a whole lot of things we have to do.”
Love said registering parties was a big issue in South Africa as the country had nearly 600 parties registered “but not all of them are registered to contest elections at all levels of government”.
It was important for parties to have their constitution laid out when registering their party but each of them has to have their logo, abbreviation of the name and brand colours finalised.
“You then have to place that in a government gazette for two weeks, and anybody, including any other political party has a right to contest … which might be a case of that name is to similar to another name or that a logo might create confusion.”
“Firstly they must indicate what part of the election they are going to contest. If they are not an independent candidate they must be able to put up the candidates that will be on their party lists. “And they have to pay a deposit.”
She said in the last four years the electoral commission have had to acquire significant procurement items and they cost “significant amounts of money”.
“So we [IEC] have had a clean audit for the last four years and we have had an unqualified audit for the years before that. Precisely because we are really, really vigilant about how we prepare for these things. It can’t be left for the last minute.”
“We also have to make sure we accredit observers which is not the same as party agents … these are observer organisations, and to accredit them we have to ensure they explain their reasons for wanting to be observers. That they too provide us with contact info, how many individuals they are going to be deployed and where they are going to be deployed.”
“We need to be sure we set up result centres … because, legislation requires us to do a process of counting in the station that you are voting, and those results slips that are available, be displayed on the doors of the voting stations.
“These result centres are something that the electoral commission introduced some years ago to enable the process of communicating and transmitting results is transparent as possible. Because throughout the world one of the most difficult moments in any electoral process is the results.”
I don’t think that any electoral management body will be able to say we have created a system that has no mistakes
Love said a huge amount of work went in to transmitting this information which is not only limited to the display board at the results centre that can be seen by everyone watching proceedings on television.
“All political parties and individual candidates have a desk with a computer that can link in to that results system. Every results slip that is compiled in the voting station when results are counted and an image is taken by a party agent or anyone else …
“This is really something important to say … an electoral process not just on the day but also leading up to it, involves millions of transactions. I don’t think that any electoral management body will be able to say we have created a system that has no mistakes,” said Love.
An election is not an event, it’s an ongoing cycle.
“But what we are saying that we want those mistakes to be able to be picked up by everybody that has a vested interest and we count on the fact that one person’s vested interest won’t be the same as another person’s vested interest. So everybody will keep us on our toes.”
Love made it clear that there was a distinction between that which a party agent is expected to do and what an observer is expected to do. “They are two different roles but they are equally critical roles.”
“Not just for us to be able to know what happens on the day happens as correctly as possible … for the scrutiny that it needs and also to help us to improve every election … so every election that we are involved in is followed by a very comprehensive programme of assessment – in terms of what may have worked and what did not.”
She said navigating the law was an important part of what the electoral commission had to deal with which was quite an involved process due to the fact that there were over 23,000 voting stations across the country. “None of these places that are owned can be worked on by the commission. “They are all premises that have to be leased and they have to go through a competitive process and then after the opportunity to use those is confirmed, only then can we do the assessment that we need.”
“An election is not an event, it’s an ongoing cycle.”
“I think that context in what people young people in particular think of their society plays a huge role in voter participation … it’s a big challenge and we have to look at what our context is showing us … for example the issue of unemployment is a huge problem.”
She said when a survey was done of ward committee meetings, only 70% of young respondents knew ward committees existed; 39% had no idea who their ward councilor was and 65% “would not dream” of going to a ward councillor meeting.
“So the idea that the demand for democracy that we take for granted is something that is really not borne out by the reality.”
“With 51% of youth between 16-24 believing democracy is preferable to any other system, which is not a very high margin, this statistic should not make us feel reassured. It’s not the electoral system that delivers democracy, it’s the results,” said Love.
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, Augustt 22, 2024. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
