Simplified strategies that undecided voters can use

On May 29, SA will hold its seventh elections since its dawn of democratic era 30 years ago.

In less than two weeks, the more than 27.79-million registered voters have an opportunity to change the course of the country’s history, if they match the turnout efforts of the historic 1994 elections that saw 88% of eligible voters show up to give practical meaning to democracy’s age-old mantra of governance “for the people and by the people”.

But as more voters become disillusioned by the power of the voter to bring change, we are unfortunately seeing less voters at the polls.

In 2024, SA has the highest number of registered voters, yet many of those voters do not believe their votes matter. Listening to the predictions of political parties and polling agencies, voters, particularly undecided voters, feel like the election result will be no different from years before. This could not be further from the truth. High voter turnout, especially by the millions of undecided voters, could make these the most unpredictable and exciting elections this country has ever seen.

Over the past 30 years voter turnout has slowly declined. In the 2019 national and provincial elections official turnout was down to 66%, while in 2021 at the last local government election turnout plummeted to 45%. In both cases, what should concern us more is that the decreasing turnout does not include the millions of people who are of voting age but not registered.

In 2019, the party with the most voters got just more than 10-million votes. This means if all the unregistered voters showed up and voted for the same party, that party would have been bigger than the biggest party in that election. That is power. But even if they did not vote for the same party, their participation would have reduced the percentage of the largest party from 57% to well below 50%.

Undecided and disillusioned voters do not understand the power they hold in this election. Paralysed by uncertainty, many undecided voters either say they are overwhelmed by too many options or that among the many options they cannot find any good options.

Many undecided voters think that it hurts the parties when then do not show up, when in fact the opposite holds true. When undecided voters stay home on election day, it makes it easier for parties to get a bigger percentage because there are less voters to convince and less voters are needed to get a high percentage.

Elections are decided by the voters, but only by the voters who show up. It is important that at a minimum, undecided voters decide to show up. Show up for themselves and for the country, even if they are yet to decide how to use their vote on May 29. To make the decision easier there are five strategies undecided voters can use:

1. Vote for your issues – Decide on the top three issues you want your vote to change. Make a lists of parties or candidates who care about your issues and those who don’t. Use this as a short list to focus your options. When you find parties worth considering on the issues you care about, convince other people who care about your issue to vote the same as you.
2. Vote for accountability – Contact parties and candidates you are considering voting for and ask them to engage you on the issues you care about and any questions you have. If they do not respond to that engagement do not vote for them. Ask parties who they are sending to parliament and why.
3. Vote for your opponent – If you cannot find a party that is 100% worth voting for as your champion, then you must consider any party that you will need to fight any party that gets power. In this case, you should vote to make sure that whoever you need to fight with for change in the next five years is a party you think is one that at least cares to some extent about your issues and is open to engaging you.
4. Vote against parties or candidates you do not like – Sometimes it is easier to decide who you do not want to vote for. When that is the case, you should still show up and vote remembering that the more people vote the harder it will be for the parties you do not like to get a big percentage and those parties will have to work harder to get a seat in parliament because you showed up.
5. Vote to hire or fire politicians – Treat voting like you are the boss and you are either hiring or firing the politicians. They are asking you to give them a job for five years to work for you, you should make them work hard for that job. Read manifestos like CVs, looks at the proposed contributions and question whether they can do those things.

On May 29, if undecided voters show up in their millions, we may just get an election that pushes SA into a new era of politics and democracy.