The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has clarified some confusion about updates to its results dashboard after the National and Provincial Elections held last month.
“The Electoral Commission acknowledges there has been talk and some uncertainty regarding the update of the Elections Dashboard last week to show the total number of votes from both National Assembly ballots and the final allocation of seats (out of 400 seats) for the 2024 National and Provincial Elections,” the IEC said.
The IEC explained that they updated the results dashboard to reflect the “regional strength” of political parties.
“In the 2024 elections, registered voters received two ballots for the National Assembly: one National ballot and one Regional ballot. There was also a third ballot for provincial elections. Over 16 million registered voters participated, casting around 31.92 million ballots across the 9 regional and 1 national ballot.
“The Electoral Act requires that both the national compensatory (N) and regional (R) ballots be considered when calculating compensatory seats. Therefore, the dashboard now shows N + R totals.
“This adjustment ensures that compensatory seats are allocated based on the regional support for all political parties, meeting the proportional representation required by the constitution,” the statement explained.
By Ekurhuleni News reporter