Elections could have incomplete voters' roll
The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has applied to the Constitutional Court for an extension of 17 months to verify the addresses of South Africans not recorded on the voters' roll.
The next national elections is expected take place between May 8 and August 7 2019.
In 2016, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng gave the IEC 18 months to fix the defects and obtain the outstanding addresses of millions of registered voters.
However, the IEC has now asked the Constitutional Court to extend the ruling by 17 months.
Electoral officials were grilled by Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Tuesday on their readiness to hold elections next year, with the issue of the incomplete voters roll one of the concerns raised by MPs.
IEC senior manager, Grandville Abrahams told MPs that the number of complete addresses added to the voters' roll increased from 34% in 2016 to 72% May this year.
The Deputy CEO for Outreach at the IEC, Dr Nomsa Masuku, says the original deadline was June 2018.
"What we have done is that we've gone through campaigns, and in those campaigns we were able to reduce the number of people that do not have addresses but we are not at 100%. So the request that we have asked from the Constitutional Court we be granted an extension of 17 months which will cover the coming elections."