Bloemfontein - Voting for the ANC’s top six officials opened on Monday afternoon after nominations for preferred candidates were concluded.
Electoral committee member and ANC veteran Andrew Mlangeni said the voting would take place by secret ballot.
“All voting delegates are to choose one delegate per position. The voters' roll will be finalised after the credentials report has been adopted, and this has been done,” he said.
The election process would be handled by the Elexions Agency (sic), which was a technical team.
Mlangeni said the commission would be watching to make sure “they do the right thing”. The agency had been working with the African National Congress since 1991.
Delegates would split into commissions to start discussing policy documents. Each commission would then be given the opportunity to vote.
“Each commission will be called to vote separately,” Mlangeni said.
“Their tags will be scanned with a hand held scanner. It is then linked to a computer that will capture the names of the delegates, and mark that they have a ballot paper.”
Each delegates' left thumb would be marked with indelible ink, in case of computer failure or a dispute.
A total of 200 booths had been set up for voting.
“This is important - no person may bring cellphones, photographic equipment or any other electric devices during voting,” Mlangeni said to loud applause.
“Don’t bring it in, otherwise I will confiscate it.”
Votes would be counted manually.
Delegates would also vote for 80 national executive committee (NEC) members. Mlangeni said the 80 who received the most votes would be the newly elected NEC members. Half of them had to be women.
A delegate's ballot would not be counted if they voted for more than 80 people.
Mlangeni said if there was a tie for the last NEC position, the candidate would be drawn from a hat.
Thobile Thomas from the Elexions Agency said 4075 delegates would vote. - Sapa