Electoral Commission response on ballot paper design
5 October 2021
The Electoral Commission has received and responded to communication from ActionSA, one of the parties contesting the 2021 Municipal Elections, regarding the ballot paper design.
The Electoral Commission confirms that following the close of candidate nominations, a series of meetings of the local Political Party Liaison Committees were convened to enable political parties and independent candidates participating in the November 1 Municipal Elections to sign off on the draft ballot paper. The purpose of this exercise is to verify the completeness of administrative processes related to candidate nomination as well as confirmation of the registered party identifiers on the various ballots.
In terms of the electoral prescripts, the Commission is empowered to determine the design of ballot papers to be used in an election. This has been the case since the advent of democracy in the country. The scheme in the design of the ward ballots involves the following identifiers:
The name of the candidate