Voting Districts and Wards

Induction, Part 8a

From the IEC web site

Voting Districts and Wards

Registered voters are about half of the total population. In Gauteng, which has more registered voters than any other Province, Voting Districts contain on average about 2400 voters and so around 5000 people altogether. Wards may contain four or five Voting Districts. Exactly how many wards there are in Gauteng is not known to the CU at this moment but it may be that the average number of people in a Ward is between 15,000 and 20,000, and half that number of voters.

The IEC runs elections. The Demarcations Board sets ward boundaries.

The next national election is scheduled to be held in 2014. The ANC will begin, or perhaps has already begun, a process of consultation about the Manifesto, which will in any case not vary a lot from the outcomes of the 53^rd ANC National Conference. The ANC Manifesto is not expected to be published before November 20013.

But the election results, as usual, will be less affected by the content of the Manifesto than by the work that is done in the wards, and especially door-to-door, leading up to election day and the bringing out of the vote on that day, which is done on the basis of the door-to-door records.

The best thing that ANC supporters can do at this moment, apart from normal door-to-door visiting, is to study the electoral boundaries and the demographics in their areas, because these change over time.

The CU does not have all the answers in this first iteration of the Induction course, but would like to benefit from any research that you may do.

Therefore please, if you can answer:

How many MPs are there in South Africa?

How many MPLs are there? By Province?

How many Ward Branches does the ANC have in any given area, Province, or Region?

How many Voting District Branches does the SACP have in any given area, Province, or District?

How are the members of the National Council of Provinces chosen?

This course will be done again in a year or less. Please help to make the next time richer in information. Please, when you send information, do please cite your sources.

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