Newsletter| Voices| If you voted abroad your vote wasn’t secret. It wasn’t the only law flouted, writes Gary Moore
The Constitutional Court has affirmed that universal suffrage is a foundational value of the entire constitutional order and that the government must take positive steps to ensure everyone can vote. The Electoral Act is intended to implement these constitutional guarantees. The Electoral Commission must promote democracy.The president proclaimed May 8 as the “single day and date” for voting, as required by the Electoral Act. But South Africans abroad had to vote on April 27.
The commission also issued regulations which stipulated that, to vote outside the country, a citizen resident abroad had to produce a valid South African passport as well as a South African identity document. The Electoral Act states that the commission must allow a person whose name appears on the segment of the voters’ roll for persons ordinarily resident outside South Africa, to cast a vote if they notified the commission of the location of the South African embassy, high commission or consulate where they would cast their vote.
The Electoral Commission asserted that it was “not possible” to vote abroad at honorary consul offices. . The commission did not set up temporary voting stations in these cities, although the Constitutional Court has ruled that Parliament must ensure that people eligible and wishing to vote are able to if they take reasonable steps to do so.
Indeed, the regulations expressly state that any non-resident South African voting abroad was obliged to then place their marked ballot paper in an envelope on the outside of which was written their name and identity number, and the place where they had voted. Voter residents abroad confirm that, before they could vote, an official copied their name and identity number from their identity document on to an envelope for this purpose.
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