African News Agency
Postponing the local government elections is out of the question – even if the Constitutional Court ruled that every name on the voters roll should be verified by particulars of a voter’s place of residence.
This was the assertion of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen yesterday.
Briefing journalists ahead of his budget vote in Parliament, Van Rooyen said the ministry would argue in the Constitutional Court case – set to take place on Monday – that the Electoral Court’s decision that “sufficient particulars” of a person’s residence should accompany their names on the voters roll should be overturned.
“If we are to postpone elections, of course that will require a constitutional amendment, so that’s not an option,” said van Rooyen. “Definitely, we are all worried. Denying so many people to exercise that democratic right (to vote) is of great concern to us.”
In February, the Electoral Court ruled that by-elections in various provinces be rerun after ward candidates in Tlokwe, North West, complained that not all names on the voters roll were accompanied by addresses.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) is appealing this decision in the Constitutional Court, supported by Van Rooyen and his department.
Van Rooyen’s deputy, Andries Nel, said about 12 million people did not have addresses or places of residence accompanying their names on the voters roll, and said correcting this could not be done “overnight”.
He said his side would argue that either the Electoral Court’s decision should be overturned, or the local government elections should go ahead while the IEC is given a few years to correct the situation.
“We can’t directly or indirectly disenfranchise South Africans, especially the poorest of the poor, those who are most vulnerable,” Nel said, adding the absence of an address next to a voter’s name did not equate to fraud.
“The vast majority of people on the voters roll who don’t have addresses next to their names have been voting at that voting station for at least 10 years, so it’s not some last-minute trick to shift votes from here to there.”
Nel said given that millions of South Africans did not have street addresses, they were considering geocoding.
“With regards to geocoding, that is one of the plan B scenarios that we developed in the event that the Constitutional Court upholds the Electoral Court judgment.
“It is meant to say how can we, in the shortest time, provide South Africans with an address, not a formal one in the traditional sense, but some identifier that links their place of residence to a geographic co-ordinate system.”