IEC digital trail undermines ANC’s election glitch claim

The Electoral Commission of South Africa has used the ANC’s own digital activity to undermine its claim that technical failures prevented it from submitting candidates in six municipalities before the election deadline.

In court papers filed in the Electoral Court, chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the ANC successfully submitted other candidate lists within minutes of the 5pm cut-off on August 28, while some of the disputed municipalities recorded no activity during the crucial final two hours.

The evidence shifts the dispute away from whether the commission’s online nomination system was operational and towards whether the ANC left its submissions too late.

READ: ANC’s court papers thin on proof of IEC glitch, strong on legal technicality

Mamabolo said:

“The ineluctable inference to be drawn from this objective evidence is that the ANC simply ran out of time.” 

“By leaving the final submission step to the last moment for a number of municipalities, it could not complete the process.”

The ANC approached the Electoral Court after its proportional representation lists and ward nominations were excluded in Sundays River Valley, Walter Sisulu, Ngquza Hill, Port St. John’s, uMshwathi, and Mangaung.

It claimed its administrators were logged out of the Online Candidate Nomination System at 4.34pm and again at 4.57pm while they were finalising the outstanding lists.

But the IEC said its workflow audit did not record activity involving any of the six municipalities at or near the two times identified by the ANC.

Two of them, Ngquza Hill and Port St. John’s, recorded no activity during the final two-hour window. Their last recorded activity occurred at about 10.10pm on August 27, the evening before the deadline.

ANC was submitting other lists minutes before cut-off

The last activity for uMshwathi was recorded at 4pm, while Mangaung’s was at 3.04pm. Sundays River Valley and Walter Sisulu recorded activity at 4.52pm and 4.55pm, respectively, but remained marked “Not Submitted As Final” when the deadline arrived.

The IEC said the ANC nevertheless succeeded in submitting candidate lists for Inxuba Yethemba at 4.56pm and 4.57pm.

“This objective evidence shows that the ANC was able to access the OCNS and submit its list as final,” Mamabolo said.

“That the ANC did not itself ensure they were finally submitted is not something it can shift responsibility towards the commission for.”

The IEC denied that the ANC’s administrators were logged out at the two stated times. It said the allegation was not supported by objective evidence and the party had supplied no technical material proving a system malfunction.

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Mamabolo said all eight servers supporting one part of the system and all 23 online server nodes recorded 100% availability, with no downtime.

“The OCNS was functional at all relevant times,” he said.

The IEC also challenged the ANC’s failure to provide confirmatory affidavits from the administrators who allegedly experienced the problems.

Its application is supported by an affidavit from secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, but not by direct evidence from the officials operating the system.

Warnings came before the deadline

The commission said the ANC knew long before the deadline that capturing candidate information was different from submitting it.

The party attended national and provincial training sessions at which officials repeatedly explained the final-submission process. The training material warned parties on four separate pages, in red lettering, not to forget to “Submit as Final.”

The ANC’s principal online administrator had also used the system since it was introduced in 2016.

Automated emails were sent to the party on August 26 warning that it had candidate lists that had been captured but not submitted. The online dashboard also displayed flashing alerts for unfinished submissions.

Mamabolo said the ANC had not finally submitted lists for nearly all municipalities two days before the deadline. It was still changing its nominations on the last afternoon, including withdrawing an already submitted list for the Chief Albert Luthuli municipality at 3.44pm.

“So, the ANC left the last crucial step in the OCNS process until right before the deadline,” he said.

Final button becomes the legal battleground

The ANC’s remaining argument is that pressing “Submit as Final” was not a legal requirement contained in electoral legislation.

It says it completed the electronic forms and uploaded the required documents before 5pm. Because the information had entered the IEC’s designated system and could be retrieved, the ANC argues that the nominations had legally been submitted.

The IEC rejected that interpretation. It said the system allowed parties to capture, save, review, and amend candidate information before making an unequivocal final submission.

READ: Setumo Stone | ANC’s likely heads of argument before Electoral Court

“The capturing or temporary storage of information is not a final submission,” Mamabolo said. “It is an administrative and navigational feature of the OCNS.”

He said pressing the final button converted editable information into a formal nomination.

“Without the final submission step being performed, there is no electronic submission of a nomination.”

The IEC said the ANC was among 45 parties affected by the distinction. Across the country, 2 274 potential candidates were captured on the system but not submitted as final. They included 480 proportional representation candidates and 1 794 ward candidates.

The commission warned that recognising the ANC’s unfinished lists would treat it differently from other parties subjected to the same deadline.

“Fairness requires that all parties and candidates are held to the same requirements no matter who they are,” Mamabolo said.

“The ANC in this case seeks to subvert that principle.”

Setumo Stone