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  • 2019-02-15 (xsd:date)
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  • Yes, more than 9 million eligible voters aren’t registered for South Africa’s 2019 elections (en)
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  • Over a quarter of the South Africans who could vote are missing from the voters’ roll, according to an article on BusinessTech . The headline reads: 9.2 million eligible voters are not registered for the 2019 elections. National elections are set for 8 May. While the number of registered voters in 2019 has increased to 26.7 million, the eligible population has increased to about 35.9 million, the article says. This puts the registration rate at 74.5% in 2019. Electoral Commission says 9.8 million aren’t registered The article was posted to Facebook , where a user flagged it as potentially false. But it’s largely correct. The original article was written by GroundUp , a donor-funded news agency that focuses on human rights. GroundUp’s source was a statement released by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (known as the IEC) after the final registration weekend of 26 and 27 January 2019. Over 700 000 new voters registered during the final registration weekend, bringing the total number of registered voters on the voters’ roll to 26,727,921, the IEC said. (Its registration statistics page put the number at 26,722,371 on 12 February 2019 .) But it said the number of eligible but unregistered voters was 9.8 million, not 9.2 million. The Commission remains concerned that approximately 9.8 million eligible voters are still not registered, of which approximately 6 million are under 30 years old. Women make up 55% of registered voters Based on the IEC’s figures, some 36.5 million people are eligible to vote. The 9.8 million unregistered voters make up 26.8% of all eligible voters. About 14.7 million registered voters, or 55%, are female, and 12 million male. Some 5.7 million (21.4%) are under the age of 30. People aged 30 to 39 are the largest age group of registered voters: 6.7 million, or 25%. Eligible voters can still get their names on the voters’ roll by registering at local IEC offices . Registration will close when the 8 May election date is officially proclaimed - likely towards the end of February. Who can vote in South Africa? To be eligible to vote you have to be a citizen aged 18 or older. Even people serving prison terms are eligible to vote in South Africa – unlike some other countries – thanks to a constitutional court ruling that upheld political rights laid out in the Bill of Rights. Non-citizens, young people under the age of 18 and those declared by the High Court to be of unsound mind or mentally disordered are not eligible to vote. Registered voters make up less than half the population South Africa has a population of 57.7 million people, according to Stats SA’s 2018 mid-year population estimates . It has 17 million children aged 0 to 14 - some 29.5% of the population - and 4.7 million people aged 15 to 19 , another 8.2% of the total. If 26.7 million South Africans are registered to vote in 2019, that means 46.3% – less than half the country’s people – may elect the country’s next government in May. That’s if they all show up at the polls. Just under 18.7 million South Africans voted in the 2014 elections , or 73.5% of the 25.4 million people then on the voters’ roll. About 18.4 million of those votes were valid. In 2014 the country’s population was estimated at 54 million , so 34% – or just over a third of the people living in South Africa – helped choose the country’s government in the previous elections. – Mary Alexander (15/02/19) (en)
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