The Electoral Commission (IEC) has added 1.2 million citizens to the voters’ roll, following last weekends and November last year’s national registration drives, bringing the roll to a total of 27.4 million citizens.
The IEC briefed the media at its headquarters in Centurion on Tuesday on its two-day registration drive.
It says KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape were the provinces that recorded the most activity which involved people registering to vote and checking their registration status.
The number of new registrations recorded were just over 450 000 people, with youth participation greatly increasing.
The first voter registration weekend in November last year, saw the IEC engage with just under 3 million eligible voters.
“As indicated the voters roll now stands at 27.4 million. Gauteng remains the province with the biggest voting population at 6.4 million, followed by KZN at 5.7 million then the Eastern Cape at 3.4 million. The age category 20 to 29 which is essentially young persons at 4.3 million now represent 48% measured against the voting age population. So, there has been an important reversal of the historic under representation of the young so at least there has been great strides made to ameliorate the historic underrepresentation of young persons in that age category,” says Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo.
Video: IEC – Voters’ roll stand over 27 million
