The Constitutional Court will on Friday render its decision on whether the malfunction of the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) online portal hindered compliance with Section 27 of the Electoral Act 73 of 1998 and whether the election timetable needs to be amended.
The case, encapsulated by the litigations of parties including the African Congress for Transformation (ACT), Labour Party of South Africa, and the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats, revolves around their failure to register for the impending elections due to purported technical glitches within the IEC’s digital submission platform.
Parties blame technical problems on IEC portal
The parties contend that these technical impediments hindered their ability to adhere to the stipulated registration deadlines.
The Electoral Court, in a prior ruling, dismissed the applications of several entities. These include (ACT). The party was formed by corruption-accused former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule’s party.
The system’s alleged inefficiencies did not absolve the tardiness of the parties in complying with registration prerequisites. This according to the court.
During the proceedings before the Constitutional Court on Wednesday, Advocate Chris Loxton represented the Labour Party. He vehemently contested the adequacy of the IEC’s systems. Loxton cited a purported failure rate of 35% in submitting required information.
He likened this rate to a scenario where a bank’s application fails for a substantial portion of its users. The advocate argued that such a failure rate signals significant issues within the IEC’s digital infrastructure.
Labour Party defence cites 35% failure rate as significant
“That’s just untrue, 35% failure rate is not a small minority. And 65% is not a vast majority. What it indicates is that despite the glowing reports from the service provider who said their system is working well, and the argument that if some could do it, everyone could do it, there were significant difficulties,” Loxton argued.
On the other hand, Magashule’s ACT party advocated for a grace period to submit outstanding documents. This without advocating for a comprehensive review of the electoral timetable.
The IEC, opposing these applications, asserted that the online portal functioned effectively. It added that reopening the submission window would incur substantial costs of over R500-million.
Justice Steven Majiedt questioned the fairness of such expenses when the majority of parties managed to submit documents on time. He said this reinforced the importance of upholding election timetables for maintaining the integrity of the electoral process.
