• South Africans who need to cast a vote from home have until 3rd May to register.
• Those who need to vote from outside of their registered district have until 17th May to file a Section 24A form.
• There is a very high possibility that the elections could be delayed if there is veracity to allegations of forgery by the MK Party.

At the end of next month, South Africans will head to the polls to vote in the General Elections for 2024. For those who can’t leave their homes, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) allows for voting from home, so long as voters register.

The deadline for that registration is 3rd May which is this Friday.

“Home visits are intended for those voters who are unable to travel to voting stations, while special votes at voting stations are for everyone who is unable to be at the voting station on Election Day. Special voting will be conducted on the two days preceding Election Day, on 27 and 28 May 2024, from 9am to 5pm,” the IEC explained.

Voters needing to cast a special vote can register via the IEC’s online portal here. Alternatively, voters can visit their local IEC office and complete either the Appendix 1B form or the Appendix 1B form. These forms can be delivered to an IEC office by somebody else on your behalf.

“The Commission wishes to distance itself from a widely circulated message claiming that it has granted permission for everyone over the age of 60 to cast a special vote on 27 and 28 at the polling station where they are registered. This is not a message from the Commission,” the IEC added.

South Africans are required to vote in the district they registered in. In the event that this isn’t possible, citizens will need to complete a Section 24A form located here. These submissions close on 17th May so there is still time to complete this application.

Fake signature controversy

At the weekend a criminal complaint was laid against Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe party (MK Party) alleging that the party had forged signatures that were required to register for this year’s elections. The complaint was laid by a former senior MK party official Lennox Ntsodo.

A report from City Press alleges that the party used ID numbers, names and contact numbers from a City of Cape Town jobseekers database and forged signatures for those people. The publication reportedly called 15 people on the MK Party’s list, 14 of which denied they had signed the list.

The IEC has called for an expedited investigation into this matter given how close to the elections we are.

“The Commission calls on the crime investigation authorities to expedite the investigations in order to establish the verity of the allegations made. An expeditious investigation is essential for the conduct of free and fair elections,” the IEC said.

The commission notes that while it verified the ID number on the lists provided by those contesting the elections, verifying signatures is “impossible”. As such it would be rather trivial to sneak past a group of ID numbers, names and contact numbers past the IEC’s protections given it is only verifying the ID number.

As The Daily Maverick highlights, if the MK Party did indeed forge these signatures, that would bring the elections as a whole into disrepute. The IEC could end up delaying the elections if it needed to but we’ll have to wait to see how this matter plays out.