More voter education urgently needed on three-ballot system

On 29 May, voters at 22,296 voting stations will each receive three ballot papers. This is different from before and I have encountered a huge amount of confusion about this change. With a shrinking budget, it seems that the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) can carry out only limited voter education, so unless political parties start doing their bit, we might see many spoilt ballots.

Before the 1994 election, there were major concerns about voter literacy. Given that for the majority of voters, it was their first opportunity to vote, many wondered what would happen. In particular, they feared that a large number of spoilt ballots would raise questions about the legitimacy of the election outcome.

The Electoral Commission, with political parties, made a huge effort to educate voters with banners, TV and radio advertisements, sample ballot papers and workshops. All party candidates were sent out with instructions to not only promote their parties, but to also explain the voting process.

It paid off. 

Of the almost 20 million people who voted in South Africa’s first democratic election, just under 200,000 (1%) cast ballots that were spoilt or rendered invalid.

Subsequent elections saw similar outcomes, with the number of spoilt ballots never exceeding 1.5% of the total votes in national and provincial elections. 

Following the ruling of the Constitutional Court in 2020 that independent candidates must also be allowed to contest elections at provincial and national levels, political parties agreed on changes to the Electoral Act, which resulted in a three-ballot system — two for the National Assembly and one for the provincial legislatures.

The first ballot for the National Assembly will have the names of the 52 registered political parties on it and will be identical throughout the country. The list will be topped by the Alliance of Citizens for Change (ACC), followed by the other parties in alphabetical order.

You might wonder, why the ACC? To be fair and prevent all parties from giving themselves a name starting with the letter A, the IEC draws the name of a party out of a hat. That party then tops the ballot and the other parties follow alphabetically. In 1994, for example, the PAC was at the top, followed by the Vryheidsfront, the Women’s Rights Peace Party, the Ximoko Progressive Party and the African Muslim Party. (Whatever happened to all of them?)

The ballots

Opportunity