The decision by the IEC to sit back and wait for Monday's Constitutional Court ruling on the address requirement for the August 3 local government elections is staggering.Several million registered voters - possibly as many as 12 million - do not have addresses listed on the voters' roll, making them ineligible to vote if the highest court upholds an earlier ruling by the Electoral Court.The electoral commission was embarrassed in November when the Constitutional Court ruled that by-elections it oversaw in Tlokwe were not free and fair because the addresses of voters had not been verified.Its attempts to remedy matters - chiefly by holding two registration weekends and through media appeals to people to visit their local IEC offices - have been only partially successful.Next week the commission will seek clarity from the Constitutional Court as to whether the addresses of all 25million voters must be captured - an unprecedented undertaking - or only those who registered after the November ruling.The problem is that the election is three months away - and it can only be postponed by means of a constitutional amendment.The Constitutional Court could confirm the lower court's finding. After all, this is a local election in which ward councillors are directly elected by constituents. Surely it can only be truly fair if all voter addresses are verified.The IEC has a "Plan B" - it has created a "geo-coding" system for voters without definitive street addresses that will identify broad areas in which they live.This is all well and good, but the commission dropped the ball by holding its "final" voter registration weekend in early April. Surely it should have been using multiple voter registration weekends, and a huge publicity drive, in case the case does not go its way.These elections will be the most fiercely contested since 1994. The IEC must be seen to be doing everything in its power to ensure that they are fair and that no one is disempowered...