Voter education crucial with three ballot system

Millions of South Africans will head to the polls in May in a historic election that will for the first time see the use of three ballot papers.

This will be a new and different experience for many South Africans and the onus is on the Electoral Commission of South Africa to ensure it is a user-friendly experience for voters.

The three ballot system lies in the Electoral Amendment Act (EAA), which was signed into law in April last year to amend the 1998 Electoral Act, allowing independent candidates to contest provincial and national elections in terms of a Constitutional Court judgment in June 2020.

The judgment ruled that the Electoral Act was unconstitutional as candidates could only contest elections by way of membership of a political party.

The crucial point to make is that only one mark is made per ballot paper.

Where independent candidates and political parties appear on the same ballot there will be no distinction and voters will have to carefully scrutinise the ballot paper before making their mark.

With the inclusion of independent candidates for the first time, ballot papers will be longer than in the past, with 115 parties that have successfully submitted their candidate nominations and 16 independent candidates.

Voters will see three ballot papers rather than the two previously. The commission said voters will receive a national ballot for the election of the compensatory 200 members of the

National Assembly which is only contested by political parties on a closed list basis. This ballot will be the same for the whole country.

The second ballot will be a regional ballot for the regional elections of the 200 members of the Assembly and this ballot will vary from region to region, depending on which parties and independent candidates contest the relevant regional election.

The third will be a provincial ballot for electing the members of the provincial legislature in each province and will contain the names of the political parties and independent candidates that have met the requirements to contest each provincial election, and will vary from province to province.

With the three ballots, the onus for voter education now lies with the commission, to avoid voters inadvertently spoiling their votes, especially due to similarities in party logos or identifiers.

Cape Times