Almost 14 old age homes in the greater Thornton area say they were misled when IEC officials came out to help seniors apply for special votes, but special vote forms were never submitted.
This led to the seniors citizens not being registered to cast their special votes, despite waiting for hours to do so.
If their applications were submitted, IEC members would come out to the seniors for them to vote.
Councillor Riad Davids explains that both the DA and IEC registered the residents of all the Homes in Pinelands, MGV and Thornton.
However, on Monday 27 May, when it was time for Special Votes, less than 20% of all those who said they applied were on the IEC’s lists.
“We implored the IEC to allow them to vote as they were on the voter’s roll and they had applied,” says Davids.
This was to no avail and the IEC officials said they must come in person on Wednesday 29 May.
According to Davids, he and his team then hired two microbuses an managed to take every senior to vote, except those who were bedridden and not covered by the IEC on Monday and Tuesday.
“It was a herculean task but we managed to cover every home,” says Davids.
According to IEC spokesperson Lenore Oliver, the IEC cannot comment on the matter without a formal notice of the alleged incidents.
- Aggrieved parties can lodge such a notice/complaint under Section 55 at S55Objections@elections.org.za
