IEC: 78% of new voters are young people
The Independent Electoral Commission says 78% of 500 000 new voters were people aged between 16 to 29.
The IEC held a voter registration drive over the weekend which saw over 2.7 million people visiting the voting stations to register and update their details.
IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamambolo says of the half a million new voters 300 000 new voters are women.
"Young persons in the age category 16-29 account for 445 089, or 78.31%, of the 568 374 new voters. Therefore, the commission’s continued focus on young persons is producing a good yield.
"The commission will persist with efforts to improve the registration levels of the youth, the well entrenched trend of there being more females on the voters’ roll continues. Of the new registrations, 298 500, or 52.52%, were female."
The voters roll now stands at 26,8 million.
Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape recorded the most registration transactions with Northern Cape registering the lowest.
Provinces with the highest online registrations are Gauteng, Western Cape and KZN, Gauteng leading with more than 600 000 new voters.
Mamabolo says over 196 500 voters registered on the online portal, however the commission is working on resolving some online registrations that gave a “pending” message.
"The 'pending' message is received by voters in instances where the ID image that they have uploaded cannot be read or recognised by the system, or where an image other than an ID has been uploaded.
"We urge voters to take extra care and follow system prompts when uploading images of their ID, the online registration portal remains available and citizens are urged to continue to use this platform to update their particulars and register to vote.
"We further urge those whose applications were not concluded on the system to finalise them."
The IEC says there will be another voter registration weekend before the elections.
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