Technology streamlines 2026 voting process

Technological innovation has enabled the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to receive and process operational information from voting stations across the country, strengthening oversight and helping election managers make timely, informed decisions.

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said the Commission expanded its fleet of Voter Management Devices (VMDs) for the 2026 Local Government Elections, deploying 56 000 devices at voting stations after adding 16 000 during the voting period.

Speaking at the announcement of the Local Government Elections results on Sunday evening, Mamabolo said the additional devices included 8 000 newly procured by the Commission and 8 000 donated by the Gauteng Provincial Government from its existing fleet.

“With these additional devices, the Commission’s total VMD deployment increased to 56 000 devices, comprising the 40 000 procured in 2021 and the additional 16 000 deployed for these elections. This expansion materially increased the technological resources available to support voting station operations,” Mamabolo said at the IEC National Results Operations Centre in Midrand.

For the 2026 elections, the devices supported key areas of operational management, including monitoring voter participation, tracking ballot paper consumption, recording electoral staff attendance, and reporting on the opening and closing of voting stations.

Mamabolo said the technology was central to the Commission’s oversight of voting station activities nationwide.

“The significance of this infrastructure lies in its ability to transform election management from a largely decentralised activity into a more integrated and information-driven operational environment,” he said.

The VMD expansion formed part of a broader investment in technology to improve operational efficiency, strengthen oversight and enhance transparency during the elections.

Mamabolo also highlighted the Virtual Results Operating Centre (Virtual ROC), another major innovation introduced for the 2026 elections. It allowed political parties and candidates to access selected results centre applications and reports remotely, without having to visit designated results centres.

The platform provided access to the Issue Tracker and selected functions of the Results System, enabling stakeholders to follow election operations and engage with issues arising during voting and results collation.

According to Mamabolo, 1 149 users registered on the Virtual ROC, including 85 active political parties and 328 active individual party officials. The platform recorded a cumulative 54 908 information requests.

The Commission also improved the flow of election information through an Application Programming Interface (API), enabling media houses, political parties and other stakeholders to receive preliminary results as soon as they were audited.

Results were transmitted for each voting station, with the API recording 14.3 million information requests.

These technological investments supported an extensive national operation involving approximately 188 000 electoral staff deployed across 23 696 voting stations.

The Commission also printed just over 100 million ballot papers for the elections. Mamabolo said, however, that approximately 28 million were superseded following a Constitutional Court order on 15 October 2026 and changes to candidate lists in six municipalities.

Despite the additional logistical demands, the Commission said it had to accommodate the changes within the established electoral timetable while complying with the court order and ensuring fair treatment of political parties.

Mamabolo said the conclusion of the elections gave the Commission an opportunity to account for the operational capacity, technological infrastructure, human resources and institutional systems that supported the electoral process.

He said the Commission’s responsibility extended beyond declaring election results to ensuring that the systems and resources supporting the process upheld citizens’ constitutional right to vote.

A total of 15.2 million citizens participated in the 2026 Local Government Elections.

“Technology may provide the infrastructure of an election, but it is people who bring that infrastructure to life,” Mamabolo said, acknowledging the contribution of electoral personnel who worked long hours to administer voting and counting processes.

He said the Commission would continue to evaluate its operational performance, document lessons and identify areas for improvement to strengthen its electoral management systems.

“Operational excellence is not a destination. It is a continuous institutional commitment,” Mamabolo said. – SAnews.gov.za
 

 

 

Source: Original report at SAnews.gov.za.