IEC field workers go door-to-door for voter registration in KZN

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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in KwaZulu-Natal has started a door-to-door voter registration process in over 700 voting districts that have been affected by the re-determination of voting district boundaries. These areas have been affected by the re-determination of voting district boundaries.

IEC field workers are visiting the homes of eligible voters in these areas until Monday. This is as the country gears up for next year’s general election.

A review of voter information in over 700 voting districts in the province follows boundary changes by the Municipal Demarcation Board earlier this year.

IEC on a door-to-door registration drive in KwaZulu-Natal:

Nationally, about 1 900 voting districts have been affected, the majority of them in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Sometimes it is about the movement of settlement patterns as well where you would have had people living in a farm before and the farm shutdown and those people are relocated and there is no need for us to have a voting district or a voting station in that farm anymore so in KwaZulu-Natal. We have about 773 voting stations that are affected out of over 1900 nationally so 40 percent of the voting stations where we are busy with this process are in KwaZulu-Natal most of those are affected by ward boundary changes and because once your boundary changes the voting district changes as well and we have to align voting districts accordingly,” says Provincial Electoral Officer for the IEC in KwaZulu-Natal, Ntombifuthi Masinga.

Sadly, Masinga reveals that some of their field workers were attacked in Umlazi, south of Durban, on Friday.

“Around safety is that SAPS does not deploy necessarily in the voting stations where we are doing this project but we make them aware that we got field workers on the ground that are working in those areas yesterday, for example, we had field workers that were attacked in Umlazi and some of the gadgets that we use to register voters were stolen fortunately the SAPS was aware of the project and they were quite swift in addressing that and those gadgets were recovered they are currently at the police station,” Masinga adds.

Meanwhile, these eligible voters who had their information updated at their homes, welcomed the initiative by the IEC. Olga Mchunu and Muzi Gumede from KwaMashu share their views.

“I am so thankful that IEC officials came to my house to update my information as an older person it was going to be difficult to go to my voting station to update my information on the voter’s rolls, they also told me that since demarcation has affected some municipal wards, I had to register to a new voting station,” an elderly person says.

“This exercise by IEC helped us a lot, the IEC staff checked my information, I am a registered voter in Gauteng however now I am based here in KZN, they were able to update my information, this exercise also ensures people are registered in order for them to be able to vote,” another eligible voter says.

The IEC is urging eligible voters to SMS their identity numbers to 32 810 to confirm their names on the voters’ roll and to confirm the voting station they are registered at.