The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is preparing for a significantly improved voter experience in the 2026 local government elections, with an ambitious goal of ensuring that no voter waits more than 15 minutes in a queue.
This is according to the IEC’s general manager for electoral matters, James Aphane, who spoke to Sunday World about the commission’s efforts to streamline its systems and address concerns raised in previous local government and provincial and national elections.
Aphane acknowledged that long queues remain one of the biggest deterrents to voter participation, referring to the 2024 provincial and national elections.
“We have experienced challenges at certain stations where there were long queues,” Aphane said.
“If people are in a queue for a very long time, chances are they will leave. The statement that some people may have left may be true. We may have to dig deep into the data.”
He said the commission has been analysing voter flow at stations with high registration numbers and high turnout and wants to pay extra attention to such centres.
“We have closely looked at voting station efficiency. For voting stations with high registration and high turnout, we are introducing voting centres where there will be mechanisms such as scanning for a QR code that will tell you whether you are at the right station or not.”
He added: “We are aiming to make sure that you do not spend more than 15 minutes in the queue.”
Aphane described the country’s political climate as increasingly contested, saying this placed a greater responsibility on the IEC to communicate early and transparently with political parties about IEC rules.
“The landscape we are dealing with can be called a maturing democracy, but it is becoming more competitive, and that is why we are starting early, so we can show those who need to make decisions that we have done our part fully,” he said.
He said the commission wants to avoid the flurry of court cases that usually comes with an election year and instead use internal dispute resolution programmes to deal with conflict.
“I must say, the intention is not to end up in court; it is to share information and make sure that there is a broader conversation to quell the conflicts.”
He acknowledged that not all parties or candidates will be satisfied with election outcomes but said this is not an excuse to cause conflicts.
“In any contestation you are bound to find people who are not happy with the outcome of the results; hence, we make sure people know as soon as possible.
“There are a certain number of seats up for grabs, and not everyone will get a seat. You are going to get winners, and those who did not make it must embrace the outcome,” he said.
Addressing concerns about the integrity of the IEC’s systems, Aphane reiterated that the country’s electoral process remains manual.
The MK Party last year sought to invalidate the 2024 election results, claiming the process was marred by fraud. They later withdrew this bid.
“Our election process is manual, and we does not have an electronic system,” he explained.
“The results are such that after voting and counting by all party agents, including anybody who is contesting elections, the process gets monitored from there, and we have auditors who make sure that the results are correct and then submitted to the national centre.”
He also clarified a technical incident that raised eyebrows during the 2024 elections, when results display screens went down at the results centre, an issue that precipitated complaints from the MK Party.
“The results were still intact and still available on the website and on the reports,” Aphane said.
Aphane stated that the IEC launched a forensic investigation into MK Party’s complaint.
“As for the screens, it created a bit of a concern. We did a forensic investigation and found that the results were not affected. We are going to do caching, so we can display live results but always have a copy of results.”
He confirmed that the commission also experienced problems with one of the applications on its voter management devices.
“We only had issues with the voters roll application, but the other four were operating fine.
“We have done maintenance on the device itself, and we have introduced freeze periods for that application.”
He also noted that a software assurance process by an external service provider is underway ahead of 2026 elections.
On youth participation, Aphane expressed both appreciation and urgency.
“We try to show the importance of being part of an election. We must thank the young people because they have increased in terms of voter registration.
“They have slightly closed the gap, but it is not enough; we want them to go out and register,” Aphane said.
