National Results Operation Centre gets the greenlight from IEC

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Measures to prevent any attempt at rigging the elections include the capturing and verification of results at each voting station, independent audits, and real-time accessibility of data to stakeholders.

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo, has described the National Results Operation Centre (ROC) at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand as the beating heart of the 2024 National and Provincial elections.

At the ROC, the stakeholders involved in the elections will be able to see how the election results are trickling in and the finalisation of the results.

In 2019, the centre housed members of the Commission along with key operational areas of the Electoral Commission, representatives of the 48 political parties contesting the national elections, domestic and international observer missions, and media members.

The national centre receives voting results from nine provincial Results Operation Centres throughout the country.

“This ROC is the foundation on which transparency rests. All role-players will have appropriate access to system-based reports. These reports will provide a national state of play and vice verse.  The unfolding electoral process a matter of substantial import is that the results of each voting station once audited may be instantaneously availed to political parties and the media through an application programming interface,” says Mamabolo.

IEC Launches Results Operations Centre:

Free and Fair Election

The IEC is adamant that it would host another free and fair election.

IEC Chairperson Mosotho Moepya says the Commission has employed a rapid response system to address any discrepancies in the election results swiftly and decisively. The Commission has taken extraordinary measures to ensure that there is no rigging in next Wednesday’s poll.

He says due to the highly contested nature of these elections, it has also been necessary to test, through various simulations, the competency of electoral staff using historical data.

“We have asked them to go and sit in their work stations and this data was pumped to them in the system to simulate on election day – we do so for two purposes – we have to test their ability and skill to manage on election day but we also have to do so to test the capacity of our systems to handle that data in a real-life environment”