IEC says can’t yet confirm voter turnout across Free State due to system glitches

BLOEMFONTEIN - The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in Free State said that due to technical issues with their system on Wednesday, it isn't able to confirm the voter turnout across the province yet.

Various voting stations in the province had to revert to manual voting after their machines went offline on Wednesday morning.

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Speaking to Eyewitness News at the Bloemfontein Results Operation Centre on Thursday, IEC officials said the counting process has also been affected.

Only just over 100,000 votes have been confirmed so far in Free State.

Nearly 1.5 million people in the province registered to vote, but the IEC said it cannot confirm the number of those who actually voted because of the system glitches experienced.

Provincial Electoral Officer Jabulani Shabalala said, “Remember we have glitches with our VMD [Voter Management Devices]. If we had used them throughout the day, we’d know the voter turnout, but unfortunately, we had to rely on a manual process, so we can’t say for sure how many people turned out to vote.”

There has been no recent change in the results board, but Shabalala said things might change in the afternoon.