IEC Update: 2.3 million votes captured by 4pm
Vote counting continued steadily on Thursday, with the Electoral Commission giving the latest update early in the evening.
By 4 p.m. on Thursday, results had been concluded for 22,6% of the more than 23,000 voting districts, accounting for 2.3 million of the votes cast.
The Northern Cape leads in the number of votes captured, with 63%, followed by the Eastern Cape, with 58%, and the Western Cape, with 57%.
Voting continued into the early hours of Thursday morning, with some voters reporting that they stood in line until 3 am.
READ MORE: Election results trickling in after day of frustration, long queues
According to the IEC, the last ballot was cast in the early hours at the Arcadia, Swimbad voting station in Tshwane.
The first result came in just after midnight from a voting district in the Winnie Madikizela Mandela Municipality in the Eastern Cape.
The IEC’s Chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo, detailed the rigorous checks of at least six steps that the results undergo before they are released to the public.
This has been complicated by the inclusion of the third regional ballot.
“While this process is proceeding well, it is important to reflect that historically, in the first 24 hours, 80% of the results would have been finalised. However, the process in the NPE2024 has been slowed down by the third ballot, particularly in the metropolitan areas,” he said.
According to the Electoral Act, the commission has seven days within which to announce the results.
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