YOUNG South Africans want to vote via the internet, cellphones and other technology.
They want the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to introduce this to improve access and reduce the hassle of registering and voting.
According to the draft report of the electoral commission's national youth summit held in September in Benoni, South African youth also want automatic registration linked with the home affairs department through the provision of identity documents or smart cards.
The IEC has given participants at the summit until tomorrow to give input on the recommendations.
The youth also want at least one of their peers to serve on the IEC as a commissioner and to establish an advisory electoral commission for young people.
Other plans include forcing the IEC to appoint young people as election staff wherever possible and include them in the national party liaison committee.
In the run-up to the May 7 elections, more than one million teenagers eligible to vote did not bother to register while only 5.7million out of 9.4million South Africans in their 20s were registered to vote.
Director of the Durban University of Technology's e-Skills CoLab Colin Thakur said it was possible to vote using cellphones, but it had risks. One of the problems was verification.
"Are you who you say you are?" Thakur said.
Another risk would be coercion, which is highly unlikely in the manual voting used in South Africa, according to Thakur.
Thakur said costs would be a factor and estimated that it would cost about R2.3-billion to run an electronic poll for registered voters.
Thakur, who was commissioned to do research on e-voting by the IEC in 2010, said electronic voting would deal with youth apathy.
"Young people are technophiles. They'll press a button for democracy rather than fill in a form," he said.
Namibia is due to make history by running the continent's first electronic elections at the end of this month with gadgets imported from India, according to Thakur.
The ANC Youth League's Bandile Masuku said: "If that [electronic voting] would improve voter turnout among young people, the ANCYL would not be [averse] to that."
sidimbal@sowetan.co.za
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
Youth want to swipe or click for democracy
YOUNG South Africans want to vote via the internet, cellphones and other technology.
They want the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to introduce this to improve access and reduce the hassle of registering and voting.
According to the draft report of the electoral commission's national youth summit held in September in Benoni, South African youth also want automatic registration linked with the home affairs department through the provision of identity documents or smart cards.
The IEC has given participants at the summit until tomorrow to give input on the recommendations.
The youth also want at least one of their peers to serve on the IEC as a commissioner and to establish an advisory electoral commission for young people.
Other plans include forcing the IEC to appoint young people as election staff wherever possible and include them in the national party liaison committee.
In the run-up to the May 7 elections, more than one million teenagers eligible to vote did not bother to register while only 5.7million out of 9.4million South Africans in their 20s were registered to vote.
Director of the Durban University of Technology's e-Skills CoLab Colin Thakur said it was possible to vote using cellphones, but it had risks. One of the problems was verification.
"Are you who you say you are?" Thakur said.
Another risk would be coercion, which is highly unlikely in the manual voting used in South Africa, according to Thakur.
Thakur said costs would be a factor and estimated that it would cost about R2.3-billion to run an electronic poll for registered voters.
Thakur, who was commissioned to do research on e-voting by the IEC in 2010, said electronic voting would deal with youth apathy.
"Young people are technophiles. They'll press a button for democracy rather than fill in a form," he said.
Namibia is due to make history by running the continent's first electronic elections at the end of this month with gadgets imported from India, according to Thakur.
The ANC Youth League's Bandile Masuku said: "If that [electronic voting] would improve voter turnout among young people, the ANCYL would not be [averse] to that."
sidimbal@sowetan.co.za
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
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