Some St Francis Bay residents were non-surplussed, others dismayed to find they their names were not on the voters’ roll where they reside, when they went to check at the polling station this past weekend.
The St Francis Bay area which includes Cape St Francis and Paradise Beach is Ward 12. It does not include St Francis Links and Sea Vista.
On checking at the Ward 12 polling station in St Francis Bay, these residents found they were not registered to vote at the Links or Sea Vista, but not in Ward 12 even though they are still living in St Francis Bay.
Dennis and Leone Margo said: “Despite what the Internet or your SMS said, check your voting status. My wife and I were told that we are registered when we checked on the Internet. We went to check physically at the station and found that neither of us appear on the Ward 12 voters’ roll. We had to re-register.
There were a few other similar remarks on FB yesterday. On the Kouga Democrat’s website Elza van Lingen from Cape St Francis wrote: “Many voters have reported their addresses are no longer on the voters’ roll and they had to re-register.
“I have been voting in St Francis Bay for the past 16 years, but my address had disappeared from the voters roll,” she said. “Others, like residents in St Francis Bay have been registered as living in St Francis Links, while numerous voters from Ward 8 (Wavecrest, Jeffreys Bay) who registered during the previous registration weekend, are still not on the voters roll” added Van Lingen.
When contacted this morning an official at the IEC, told St Francis Chronicle the IEC t had received a complaint from someone in the Kouga municipal area saying 1000 people were registered incorrectly. When asked to provide the ID numbers, none could be provided. The official said it is not to late to check if one is registered in the Ward in which one lives in live. One can go to the IEC office in Humansdorp next to Joshua Door, and check and re-register if necessary.
Once the 2016 election date has been published and promulgated in the Government Gazette it will be too late to do so. So anyone unsure about where they are registered is advised to pop in to the IEC office soon.
On voting day, if one has not checked and one finds they are not on the voters’ roll of the Ward in which they reside, they can still vote, but only in the ward in which they are registered.
By Bev Mortimer
St Francis Chronicle 