Kilps' Blog

Expats get the vote: simple, practical democracy

Today the Pretoria High Court ruled that South African Expats should be allowed to vote and that laws preventing them from doing so are unconstitutional. Of course those laws are – a quick check of the Bill of Rights shows us this:

Every adult citizen has the right ­to vote in elections for any legislative body established in terms of the Constitution

So with that settled one has to wonder if this will happen this election. The FF+ has moved to delay the election for time to confirm all of this and I’m sure that the practicalities of all of this will be easily worked out in time.

The ‘nightmare’

However what was most surprising was the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (never heard of them before actually) suggesting that the ruling is impractical and costly. So here is your rebuttal of Mr Pitso’s concerns, nicely bulleted for easy reading.

• “it would mean setting up voting stations across the globe… it will impact on the closing date of the voters roll…”

  Naturally the closing date of the voters roll will have to be changed to register all these new votes – but that should not be a serious concern: a month or so extra to provide citizens with their right isn’t too much to ask.

  The real issue is the setting up of new voting stations. South Africans are already eligible to vote overseas under certain (very restrictive) conditions, so voting stations are already open in our Embassies. Expanding these is unlikely to put a huge strain on resources, considering all the processes already exist.

• “Pitso said the IEC would also have to create awareness about polling stations in foreign countries which entailed advertising across the globe, another hefty expense.”

  While the IEC letting South African’s know about their new-found right to vote would be nice, few would expect them to advertise to the British public that the few South Africans amongst them can now vote. As long as the right is provided for, let the political parties alert voters.

• “The largest hurdle for the IEC would be to ascertain exactly how many potential voters there were in each country in order to determine where to set up stations and what the manpower requirements of these stations should be.”

  Well that’s why we have voter registration, so the IEC knows that. Simple.

• “Embassies in foreign countries were typically used for citizens to cast their ballots. The IEC would have to staff voting stations set up at embassies with independent workers.”

  See first point, already happens.

Estimates put the number of potentially eligable voters overseas at 2 million. Obviously we cannot expect that number to take part, but this new development is sure to change the dynamics of the next election. All for the better of course.