Municipal election voter registration exceeds expectations

The number of new voters turning out to register exceeded expectations‚ the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said on Tuesday.

“We were hoping for 1-million new voters and we received 1.3-million new voters registering‚" chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya said on Tuesday.

Many voters around the country visited their voting stations over the past weekend in the last bid to register before the 2016 municipal elections in August.

They‚ combined with those who did so the previous registration weekend in March‚ saw a total of 1 384 254 new voters added to the voters’ roll.

This brings the total number of voters to 26 296 601 - or approximately 77% of the eligible voting population.

The commission said it was satisfied with the outcome of the two registration weekends.

The commission added that that young people heeded the call to register as 80% of new voters were under the age of 30.

Other stats issued by the commission:

- A total of more than 6.6-million voters visited their voting station over the two registration weekends – including 3 581 540 during the past weekend.

- This was almost two-and-a-half times more activity than in the two registration weekends for the 2011 municipal elections.

- 1 384 254 were new registrations (20.73%).

- 2 253 645 re-registered in a different voting district (33.74%).

- 3 040 835 re-registered in the same voting district (45.53%)

- Of the new registrations‚ 52.54% were women compared to 47.46% men.

- KwaZulu-Natal topped the registration activity‚ logging over 1.1-million visitors to its voting stations.