WALLIS AJ
voting district and correct ward. This should not be unduly difficult as according to
the affidavit of Mr Maduna, delivered by the applicants in their response to the
directions, the only ward in which there are no verifiable addresses is ward 20 and that
relates only to 10% of the ward area.
[118] If the voter does not have an address – and, even in informal settlements, very
often sites or the dwellings are numbered or identified in some way – the IEC is not
obliged to refuse them registration. Nor is the segment of the voters’ roll relating to
that voter invalidated by the absence of an address. Section 16(3) makes it clear that
their inclusion is dependent on the addresses being available. That means that the IEC
must endeavour to ascertain from the person coming to register an address, where they
have a physical address, or some detail that will serve as an address for the purposes
of the roll. But if there is none then, provided they are registered in the correct ward,
they must be registered and the absence of an address does not affect the validity of
the voters’ roll.
[119] After dealing with the alleged difficulties in regard to registration of voters in
these areas the chief electoral officer said that it would add three weeks to the election
timetable.
But that still leaves it well within the statutory 90 day period. The
applicants say in their affidavit in response to the directions that there has been little
movement in these wards since the national elections in 2014 so that compiling a roll
for by-elections should be a matter of removing people whose names should not be
there and updating the roll. The only other problem mentioned by the IEC is that we
are approaching the Christmas holiday period and people may go away.
But it
rejected that as a ground for postponing the December by-elections in 2013, so it
should not be able to rely on it now.
[120] In relation to paragraph 2 of the directions addressed to the MEC for
Local Government and Human Settlements, the acting MEC and the Speaker of the
Tlokwe Local Municipality delivered affidavits. The MEC pointed out that in order
for council business to be undertaken it is necessary in terms of section 30 of the
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