Drop In Registered Voters, but Will Turnout Continue to Rise?

Analysis

It remains to be seen whether the steady uptick in voter turnout for local government elections will maintain the upward trajectory seen over the past two decades, given the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Voter turnout for local government elections has steadily risen since 2000

Turnout for the municipal elections, which usually by far trails that for national and provincial polls, has still risen steadily since 2000, when only 48.07 registered voters cast their ballots. In those elections, more than 18.4-million people were registered to vote.

However, for the first time since those elections 21 years ago, the number of registered voters has decreased slightly by about 100 000 people. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) said that the number of registered voters for the 1 November elections was R26.2-million compared with 26.3-million for the previous local government vote five years ago.

Voter turnout for the 2016 polls was the highest it has ever been, with 58% of the electorate showing up to cast their ballots, a slight uptick from 57.6% five years before.

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