WALLIS AJ “government of the people, by the people, for the people” was coined on a different continent in a country wracked by civil war,81 but it resonates in South African ears. We too are committed to a government based on the will of the people and that will finds its primary expression in the outcome of elections at all levels. If these by-elections are set aside the legitimate votes of legitimate voters will have been fruitless. And, for all we know, had the irregularities not been present their choice would have fallen on the same candidates who were declared elected. [102] This consideration is what lies at the heart of the IEC’s submission that whatever the deficiencies in the election process the results must stand. And there is substance in the point they make. The applicants do not suggest that with a segment of the voters’ roll in each ward, shorn of improper registrations, there was any real likelihood of their achieving electoral success. They do not deal at all with the effect of the irregularities on their election campaigns. Their focus in the affidavits is almost exclusively on their efforts to ascertain whether voters had been improperly registered. But a closer examination of the elections indicates that their electoral prospects were poor. In two of the wards (wards 4 and 13) the independent candidate finished third and the representatives of the party that finished in the runner-up position, do not challenge the outcome. In three wards (wards 1, 11 and 12) the margins of victory by the successful candidates over the independent candidates were so large and the number of votes cast for the latter so small (253, 106 and 96 respectively), that improper registrations were unlikely to have been the cause of the successful candidates’ victories. In only three wards did the independent candidates achieve reasonably substantial numbers of votes and restrict the successful candidates’ majorities to more modest, albeit still significant, levels.82 This must be compared with the outcome of the election in ward 26 on 18 September 2013, which also involved a contest between an independent candidate and one representing the ANC. 81 Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address on Thursday, 19 November, 1863 commemorating the sacrifice of those from both sides who died at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. See Shapiro The Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press, London 2006) at 463. 82 The margins varied between 15 and 20% of the total number of votes cast. 52