POLL | Did you register to vote in the upcoming national elections?

More than a million people registered at the weekend to cast their votes in the hotly contested 2024 national elections.

Political parties were out in different communities, urging people to register.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) reported 326,000 registrations nationally on Saturday.

By 12.30pm on Sunday, 609,447 registrations had been recorded. Gauteng led with 120,294 registrations, followed by the Eastern Cape with 118,574 and KwaZulu-Natal with 108,878. The Northern Cape had the fewest registrations with 15,443. 

By the end of the weekend, more than 1-million registrations were recorded nationally.

While many were able to register, the commission experienced technical glitches with some online registrations. 

“The commission is seized with resolving some online registrations that gave a ‘pending’ message. The ‘pending’ message is received by voters in instances where the ID image that they have uploaded cannot be read or recognised by the system or where an image other than an ID has been uploaded. We urge voters to take extra care and follow system prompts when uploading images of their ID,” the IEC said. 

Deputy IEC CEO Masego Sheburi said there were also isolated incidences where voting stations were not opened due to service delivery protests.

“It is regrettable that in certain communities there is still the practice of linking genuine concerns by communities to the electoral process in a way that disrupts and interferes with the rights of other citizens who may be inclined to go update their registration details or to register,” Sheburi said.