Technical glitches couldn't have been predicted, says IEC

Saturday is day one of the IEC’s only voter registration weekend ahead of the local elections on November 1. 

The commission had to take down its voter management device for the first few hours on Saturday morning.

The online registration system is being used for the first time on a large scale.

Both the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba have already criticised the IEC for its systems failure.

CEO Sy Mamabolo said the commission had to close the website for few hours in order to resolve mapping functionality problems.

“The commission took a decision consciously to bring down the online system in order to resolve a mapping functionality problem. It is important to note that the downtime did not stop the registration process and this was by design, it has always been part of the plan that should we experience any online difficulties then we will be in a position to operate offline. 

“So, it was a conscious decision that we made to switch off on our own and attend to the difficulty and then there is no service delivery interruption we are able to operate on an offline mode.”

He said the glitches could not have been predicted.

“The problem with why we took down the online system was due to a glitch on the mapping interface when you deal with an online system, they have their own kind of vagaries’ which you can never predict 100% which is why in building up our system. 

“We made it possible to function online and to function offline because vagaries that are phased online are such things that cannot be predictable.”

Mamabolo said 53 voting stations in parts of Gauteng, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal could not open on time due to service delivery protests.

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