Special votes got underway without a hitch at many places in Limpopo. More than 20 000 home visit special vote applications have been approved by the Independent Electoral Commission in the province.
According to the IEC, the special vote allows a registered voter who can’t vote at their voting station on election day to apply to vote on a predetermined day before election day.
68-year-old Wilheminah Kgatla has not left her home in over two years due to ill health. She is part of more than people at Maphalle village, whose homes were visited by IEC officials to help them cast their vote.
Kgatla voted alongside her 74-year-old husband, Frank. She is delighted to have had the opportunity to cast her vote in the comfort of her home.
“I am very happy that they came and enabled me to vote from my home. I would have loved to have gone to the station, but my legs are painful and I have not been able to walk for two years now,” says Kgatla.
Her husband says; ” I am very happy that they came as my wife and I are unable to walk because our feet hurt.”
The couple is hopeful that the next administration will prioritise service delivery. “We don’t have water and are forced to buy water. The roads here are already in a bad state,” says Kgatla.
Her husband adds, “We hope that our lives will be better after this election because our situation here is bad.”
Special votes are under way across SA:
‘Vote to make significant change’
Another voter who cast her vote at Mashamothane village, near Burgersfort, 55-year-old Maria Melepe. She wants her vote to make a significant change in her life, unlike her previous vote.
Melepe, who stays in an RDP house, does not have water and electricity. “I am happy that I have voted, we will see what they will do for us because we don’t have water, we have no electricity. We had voted in the past but we didn’t get anything. I want to see what they will do for us. This time we need water and electricity since I started voting I haven’t gotten anything, they only built me an RDP house.”
82-year-old Peter Lekoadi also cast his special vote at his home village of Mashamothane. Lekoadi has expressed happiness as the electoral commission, IEC staff visited his home. He believes that service delivery challenges can be addressed through voting.
“We have a lot of problems but only through voting we can get assistance, after voting our service delivery problem might be either resolved or not but what is important is that we have voted, we don’t have water here.”
-Reporting by Pimani Baloyi and Michael Makungo
