26 million South Africans eligible to vote
Over 26 million South Africans are eligible to cast their votes in the upcoming national and provincial elections.
This comes after the certification of the voters’ roll by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) earlier this week.
Digital copies of roll will also be provided to all political parties contesting the May 8 elections.
In a statement, the IEC confirmed that 26 756 898 million voters are eligible to vote, adding that the number of voters on the roll has steadily improved since the 1999 elections.
"Since its inception ahead of the 1999 national and provincial elections, the voters’ roll has shown steady growth of over 47 percent and contains the highest number of registered voters to date, recording an increase of 1 366 748 voters since 2014.
"Of the 26.74 million registered voters, 14 716 879 are women (55 percent) which is four percent above of the demographic split of the South African population according to Statistics South Africa.”
The provinces with the highest number of voters are Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Northern Cape recorded the lowest number of voters with just over 600 000 thousand residents eligible to vote.
The most number of people that registered to vote are between the ages of 30 and 39 years.
"In terms of age, the biggest category of voters is those aged 30 – 39 years old (6 685 472) which represents 24.99 percent of the roll,” says the IEC in its statement.
