The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has highlighted the importance of getting young South Africans to vote.
The Western Cape local election launch has taken place in Cape Town with the IEC in the province saying it’s all systems go ahead of the upcoming National and Provincial elections in May 2019.
Next weekend is final voter registration.
More than three million people are registered to vote in the Western Cape.
The Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, who is responsible for Outreach, Nomsa Masuku, addressed the launch about the importance of getting young voters to register and cast their ballot.
“There’s something like nine million eligible voters who are not yet registered to vote; two thirds of that nine million are actually young people. In terms of what we are doing as the Electoral Commission, the first thing that is very obvious is that we have invited young people to conceptualise a campaign; to deliver that campaign; to manage that campaign as young people with the hope that they are going to create something that energizes them as young people,” says Masuku.
The Electoral Office in the Western Cape says accessibility for all registered voters is fundamental during final voter registration weekend.
Final voter registration is taking place on the 26th and 27th of January.
Provincial Electoral Officer, Courtney Sampson, says there are more than 1 500 voting stations that will be made available during final voting registration weekend.
“We’ve got 1 570 voting stations across the province and the intention is to use our voting stations as registration stations to make the process of registration more accessible to the general public. So, that’s where we are . We’ve got over three million registered voters in the Western Cape and we are hoping that will be increasing significantly,” says Sampson.
