Political parties have until Friday to raise objections on the interim voters' roll with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said it will investigate the objections and determine if they are genuine or not in order to make changes to the roll on March 14.

"Political parties and everybody have until the 8th [of March] to lodge an objection related to any discrepancy and any alleged irregularity in the voters roll," he said.

"This is a new feature that we have introduced for these elections because we wanted to create a structured opportunity for the voters' roll to be inspected so that we don't deal with voters' roll issues two days before the elections, they must be dealt with now."

Mamabolo was speaking during the IEC's media workshop in Sandton yesterday.

Mamabolo said the IEC has already published a list of all voting stations while the publication and certification of the final voters' roll will take place on March 18.

The IEC said 22,924 voting stations along with their physical addresses will be placed on its website this week.

Mamabolo said on March 13, South Africans who would be out of the country on election day will have an opportunity to inform the commission that they will vote at their respective destinations.

To date, 299 political parties have been successfully registered and for them to contest elections, they need to pay the prescribed deposits of R605,000 by March 13.

Parties that intend contesting elections for the National Assembly must pay R200,000 and for provincial seats R45,000. If they get a seat in parliament, their money will be returned, Mamabolo said.

The IEC will also release a list of 32 mobile voting stations with their stopping times and routes for the public to differentiate between bogus and legitimate voting stations.

Meanwhile, last week the IEC published a notice of the provisional voters' roll in the Government Gazette.

IEC chairperson Glenn Mashinini said the commission had a constitutional mandate to ensure free and fair elections and that the media should be allowed to do their work in peace.

"Every party that signs the electoral code with us must respect the role of the media, before and during elections."

The elections are on May 8.