2024 05 30T132601Z 1753267594 RC2Y08AZK9SZ RTRMADP 3 SAFRICA ELECTION
Picture Courtesy : (SABC NEWS /Bongisipho Magcaba) Election results counting is underway in NationaI Results Operating Center in Midrand, Johannesburg.
(The Post News)- The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) officials have officially counted over 50 percent of votes, following a slow voting process that took place on Wednesday, May 29.
With only 3 voting stations remaining, the North Cape is likely to be the first province to complete the vote counting. With 65 percent of votes counted, the Free State is next closest to the finish line, while the Western Cape has reached the 60 percent milestone.
Later, on Thursday, May 30, the IEC reported that a ballot box went missing in Ward 14 uMhlathuze, KwaZulu-Natal. According to the IEC, the box was being moved from one of the voting stations to the municipal electoral office for storage, as it is mandatory for the IEC to retain general election ballots for a duration of six months.
The commission stated that the ballots inside the box had already been counted, reconciled, and validated. The general manager of the IEC, Granville Abrahams, said that they were trying to locate the box and that the incident was not something the commission anticipated and that it was unacceptable.
Abrahams emphasized that the ballots in the box had been recorded; however, it was important that the box be found so it can be stored for the purpose of completeness. Although the commission does not think that it was a matter of negligence, Abrahams said that if there is negligence involved, the commission will have to investigate it more thoroughly.
Amid the vote-counting process, on Friday morning, the IEC results board was not operational. The IEC apologized for the problem of the public-facing NPE system and stated that efforts were under way to resolve the service.
Not long after the IEC’s system went down, a media statement was released containing an update that the system had been restored. The IEC confirmed that the replication of data from its national data center in Midrand, Johannesburg, and the regional data Results Operation Centers (RoCs) had been interrupted. However, the results had not been tainted, and the data in the data center was still intact.
The IEC added that their services had been reinstated, the leaderboard was operating normally, and the processing of results was unaffected and would continue in all voting stations across the country.
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