Esther Mahlangu, a contemporary South African artist, has her thumb ink-marked before casting her vote at KwaMhlanga, Mpumalanga. Picture: Themba Hadebe/AP
Millions of South African voted in the country's 6th democratic national and provincial elections on May 8.

A record 48 political parties contested this year's elections, 19 more parties on the ballot paper compared to the last general elections in 2014.

It has since emerged that at least 20 people have been arrested for "double voting" after casting their ballot then scrubbing off the indelible ink used to mark voters' thumbs before voting for a second time.

The revelations prompted the IEC to announce an urgent audit of polling stations as well as an investigation into the effectiveness of the ink used.

On Thursday, ore than 10 political parties including the African Peoples' Convention (APC), National Freedom Party, African Transformation Movement (ATM), Black First Land First, Land Party, and the Socialist Workers Revolutionary Party (SWRP) said the elections were "not free and fair" and that they were prepared to approach the courts if necessary.

The IEC, however, has expressed confidence that this incidents have not compromised the integrity of the elections. 

Are you satisfied that the elections were free and fair?  Take today's poll. 

Previous poll results:


Question: Are you splitting your vote?

Result: Just over half of the readers who took the poll (50.6%) said that they would not be splitting their vote while 41.6% said that they would vote for different parties on the national and provincial ballot papers. A further 7.8% of readers who took our poll said they would not be voting in the elections.

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