THE North West electoral commission (IEC) is confident that it will significantly reduce the number of voters without addresses in Tlokwe before the August 3 elections.

The commission was out in full force at the weekend trying to capture addresses for part of the over 9 000 voters who had to verify their status on the voters’ roll in line with the Constitutional Court judgment.

IEC provincial chairperson, Dr Tumelontle Thiba said that despite the low turn-out, they made considerable progress was made.

“We embarked on a targeted communication and registered campaign. We received more than 1200 voters who came through. This was the last attempt after we agreed as commission to give Tlokwe people another chance to bring their addresses.

“We were hard at work and our field workers were out trying to trace voters without addresses. We will wait for a full report on Wednesday to see if we managed to reduce 9 900 voters without addresses,” Thiba said.

All 76 voting stations were open for residents to register their addresses.

“We were loud hailing on Friday in the entire Tlokwe and approach those who share the same surnames with addresses to check if they know others without addresses. In most cases we found out that others without addresses reside with those who have. So that assisted a lot in getting addresses from those registered voters,” she said.

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) Minister Des van Rooyen was in Tlokwe on Saturday, encouraging people to register.

The Constitutional Court ordered amongst other things that 2016 local government elections may proceed on August 3 using the current satisfied voters roll with exception of Tlokwe.

The Tlokwe independent candidates’ spokesperson, David Kham said they were not happy with the way the IEC was conducting the exercise.

He alleged that IEC representatives were doing door-to-door campaign with ANC members.

“We are unhappy at all and we believe IEC is so incompetent. They employed field workers without field orientation. If 350 field workers could not get addresses from registered voters, then the IEC has a problem.

“We are ready as independent candidates. We have also seen improvements. We also encouraged people to come out in numbers to update their addresses even though it was not easy,” Kham said.

ANC also unleashed its bigwigs to Tlokwe two weeks ago. The likes of Naledi Pandor, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Dr Siyabonga Cwele, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, ANC Chief Whip, Jackson Mthembu and Bheki Cele were all in town on a campaign trail.

PEC spokesperson, Gerald Modise said the people were grateful to meet with their leaders. He said they raised few concerns regarding basic service delivery.

“We visited Tlokwe and Matlosana this weekend. We also introduced our ward councillor candidates to the broader community. The people are happy and adamant that they will vote for the ANC on August 3. We visited few churches on Sunday too,” Modise said.

-TDN

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