IEC rules out e-voting for 2026 local government elections

Political parties represented in the national and provincial legislatures will receive more than R355-million from the national fiscus for the current financial year, said the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on Wednesday.

The money will be shared between 20 political parties over four quarters of the 2025/26 financial year. Each quarter, the IEC will give out about R83,880,250, using a formula where 90% is based on how many votes each party got and 10% is shared equally.

Despite receiving allocations from the public purse, the IEC noted a decline in political fundraising activity, with fewer parties declaring donations exceeding the R100,000 threshold — as required by law — than in the period leading up to last year’s elections, said the IEC’s deputy chief electoral officer, Masego Sheburi.

Read more: Political parties must disclose all donations, down to the last cent, court hears

The commission made the announcement during a media briefing in Centurion, Gauteng, where it revealed that it had commenced preparations for the 2026 local government elections, set to be held between 2 November 2026 and 30 January 2027.

Elections must be held within 90 days of the end of the current term, which began on 2 November 2021 after the 1 November vote. The cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister is responsible for setting the date.

“In this regard, preliminary consultations between the commission and the minister have commenced,” said the IEC.

192 parties face deregistration

In the lead-up to the polls, the commission earlier indicated its intention to deregister 192 political parties. Of these parties, 136 have made representations to preserve their status as registered parties. This includes the South African Communist Party (SACP), which will contest elections independently for the first time.

Read more: SACP firm on decision to contest elections independently, despite Ramaphosa’s plea

Three political parties have asked the IEC to cancel their registrations and 53 political parties did not respond to the invitation to make representations.

The IEC’s CEO, Sy Mamabolo, said the commission would consider all the submissions made by the parties and make decisions, following which, some of the parties would have to start from scratch with their applications.

“Once the commission has made decisions in respect of all those parties, the register of parties will be updated. The cancellation of the registration of inactive political parties is necessary to ensure that only active political parties remain on the register. The cancellation of inactive parties will also free the usage of names, abbreviated names, logos, and colour schemes for aspirant parties.”

No e-voting, yet

One of the key questions ahead of the elections is South Africa’s readiness to explore electronic voting.

“It’s important to note the commission has not yet made a decision on the use of e-voting, and certainly this is not contemplated for use in next year’s municipal elections,” said Mamabolo.

His comments come a month after the commission held a three-day conference kick-starting a national discussion on its feasibility and possible implementation for future elections.

Read more: Why is the IEC exploring e-voting — and will it be implemented in SA?

Speaking at the conference last month, the chief director of the National Treasury’s Public Finance Division, Gillian Wilson, said information and communications technology expenses were the IEC’s fifth-highest cost. If e-voting were introduced, it would become a major cost driver.

Her presentation showed that the costs of national and provincial elections had increased by 294% from 1994 to 2024, and the baseline cost for local elections had increased by 193% from 2001 to 2021. Factors including inflation, campaign expenses and logistics contributed to the rising costs.

“A thorough analysis of the total costs associated with electronic voting must be undertaken. It must not be accepted as fact that digital voting would reduce the cost of administering elections,” said Mamabolo.

The IEC has started a six-month public engagement process that will run until September. During this time, stakeholders, civil society, voters and interest groups are encouraged to share their opinions. These contributions will help develop a final electronic voting policy, which will be submitted to Parliament and the executive for consideration.

The IEC acknowledged that the introduction of online self-voter registration in 2021 had proven to be effective, particularly with young individuals.

“The implementation of online self-voter registration is positively impacting the maintenance of the voters roll and the currency of the voters’ information on the roll.

“Since June last year, the Electoral Commission has interacted with 408,615 persons across its voter registration platforms; 258,838 were persons who were registering as voters for the first time, the majority of whom were young persons,” said the IEC. DM