Local government elections by the numbers

The Electoral Commission (IEC) says it “has put in place all the necessary measures and is confident that the process will go smoothly” as special voting in the local government elections opens on Monday.

“Officials of the commission will be visiting and assisting all people who have applied to be visited at their place of residence‚” a statement read.

 Others who can’t get to voting stations on August 3 were also able to register to cast their ballots ahead of election day at voting stations.

“The logistical arrangements for special votes have now been completed and the following materials have been delivered to their respective places”:

- Approximately 153 000 ballot boxes;

- Approximately 133 000 voting booths;

 - Approximately 1.8-million A4 pages of the voters’ roll to provide a copy of the segment of the voters’ roll for each voting station;

- 60 tons of stationery to voting stations; and

- 45 000 large banners to mark the voting stations.

Other statistics released by the IEC include:

 - 73.9-billion ballot papers were printed for the 2016 elections and these will be delivered to 22 612 voting stations.

 - Those ballot papers include 4649 unique ballot papers representing political parties and independent candidates contesting each municipality and each ward.

 - So far‚ there has been “only one incident involving theft of ballots”‚ which‚ the IEC said‚ it and the police “acted swiftly to deal with” and the papers “where quarantined and black-listed using their serial numbers”.

 - A record 719 222 applications for special votes‚ including 315 597 — or 44% — of home visits and 403 625 — or 56% — for those who can’t get to the polls on Wednesday.