Special voting, day 2: Election material storage facilities raided as IEC issues misinformation warning

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) is content with the way the special voting period is progressing, despite several security incidents.

IEC CEO Sy Mamabolo said all voting stations had opened on time on Tuesday and that a full complement of home visit teams had been deployed.

Voting stations will remain open for special voters until 5pm on Tuesday, before reopening at 7am on Wednesday.

Mamabolo asked those who had registered for special vote to get to the polls, but stressed that those who didn’t make it would still be able to vote on Wednesday.

However, Mamabolo listed the growing number of incidents experienced since the special voting polls opened on Monday.

Storage facilities attacked

The IEC CEO said there had been an increase in “glaring criminal behaviour” perpetrated by supporters of political parties.

He said the incidents included intimidation of officials, disruption of voting activities and tampering with election material.

One candidate was arrested in Mpumalanga after storming and trashing the inside of a polling station, while uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party supporters stormed an election storage facility in Pinetown and held IEC officials hostage.

“Public order policing were called to disperse these supporters and secure the officials and election materials.

“Fortunately, the group left peacefully after engagements with the South African Police Service,” Mamabolo said.

He added that similar attempts by MK party supporters were reported at other storage facilities in Richmond, Mkhambathini and Pietermaritzburg.

Additionally, police arrested two women after they allegedly posed as IEC officials.

Online misinformation

Mamabolo urged social media users to double-check the authenticity of content shared online as the IEC was experiencing a high circulation of misinformation.

“Over the past 24 hours, the commission’s information integrity hub has identified growing attempts to impugn the integrity of the electoral process, especially via social media.

“Unsubstantiated election fraud pronouncements by some political parties [have] led to supporters posting videos of presiding officers and staff transferring special vote ballots after home visits from the carrying boxes and bags into the main ballot box at the voting station,” Mamabolo said.

He said these videos lacked context and that no violations were being considered in these instances.

The IEC had so far received 34 complaints of misinformation, incitement, hate speech and harassment stemming from online content.

Mamabolo said 58% of complaints originated from material posted on X, 23.5% came from TikTok, 8.8% from Facebook, as well as WhatsApp.

He urged the public to report false electoral information to the Real411 platform, and said perpetrators of all election violations would be dealt with.

“The above conduct cannot be justified or allowed to impair the country’s electoral process.

“Therefore, the commission is taking the necessary legal steps to bring the identified individual and political parties to account,” Mamabolo concluded.