Cape Town – The Electoral Commission (IEC) is on Tuesday set to launch a communication campaign in Midrand, Johannesburg, with a focus on encouraging young eligible voters to register for next year’s elections.
This election will allow independent candidates to participate in national and provincial elections for the first time.
The IEC aims to increase awareness about this change and provide information about the upcoming national registration weekend on the 18th and 19th of the next month.
There are 26 152 855 South Africans registered on the voters’ roll. Be sure you are counted!
Register online today at https://t.co/QFgJgjwSXA for #SAelections24 pic.twitter.com/7fpqDzZJre
— IEC South Africa (@IECSouthAfrica) October 17, 2023
The Deputy CEO of the IEC, Masego Shiburi, emphasised the need to address the underrepresentation of people aged 18 to 35 in the voter population and believes that once registered, young voters are likely to be more active in the electoral process.
“We should be worried as a country about the underrepresentation of people in the age cohort 18 to 35. Consistent with the rest of the sub-Saharan continent we are increasingly a very young population, and we have an artificial representation of young people on the voter’s roll you will know that we do not use the term apathy to refer to young persons because we don’t think there is apathy on the young persons. We think they have had fewer disproportionate chances to register what we know though is that once registered the majority of them are likely to participate more than any age cohort,” Shiburi said, according to SABC.
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Picture: Twitter/@IECSouthAfrica
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu