{"id":432388,"date":"2020-09-09T12:33:29","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T10:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=432388"},"modified":"2020-09-09T12:33:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T10:33:29","slug":"these-are-the-election-changes-planned-for-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/432388\/these-are-the-election-changes-planned-for-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"These are the election changes planned for South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi has announced his intention to introduce the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>Motsoaledi gazetted an explanatory summary of the Amendment Bill on Wednesday (9 September), detailing some of the big changes included in the bill.<\/p>\n<p>While the legislation primarily appears to consolidate and streamline the elections process, it does make way for more significant changes in the future, such as electronic voting.<\/p>\n<p>The most notable changes are outlined in more detail below.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Paperless<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0 The bill will discontinue the requirement to submit paper documents by political parties in order to facilitate seamless and electronic submission of documents relating to candidates;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Electronic voting<\/strong> &#8211; The proposed amendments will allow the electoral commission to prescribe a method of voting other than the current paper ballot method, such as electronic voting;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Voters<\/strong> <strong>roll<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0 The bill will allow a different voting procedure for voters whose names appear on the certified voters\u2019 roll on voting day but without an address recorded on the voters\u2019 roll;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Applications<\/strong> &#8211; The bill will regulate the application procedure for the registration of parties intending to contest municipal elections at district and metropolitan level;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Clarification &#8211; <\/strong>The bill aims to clarify the dates that the Electoral Code of Conduct is operative and binding on contestants in municipal elections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can read the full explanatory memorandum below.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Election-Bill.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Constitutional Court judgement<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Government will also have to address a June Constitutional Court\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/406869\/south-africas-electoral-act-declared-unconstitutional-must-allow-independent-candidates-to-contest-elections\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">judgement<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>which found that the country\u2019s Electoral Act is unconstitutional as it does not provide for adult citizens to be elected to the National and Provincial Legislatures as independent candidates.<\/p>\n<p>The Electoral Act 73 of 1998 currently only allows political parties to contest in the country\u2019s national and provincial elections.<\/p>\n<p>The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/419019\/south-africa-has-to-change-how-its-elections-work-here-are-9-possible-scenarios\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">presented<\/a> <\/strong>a number of possible electoral changes to parliament in July, including a move to a different type of \u2018winner\u2019 system.<\/p>\n<p>IEC chief executive officer Sy Mamabolo said that it would ultimately be up to the country\u2019s lawmakers on which system they choose to follow.<\/p>\n<p>He added that there are two main families of electoral systems in the world \u2013 proportional and pluralist, or majoritarian systems. In other nomenclature these are known as single-winner systems or multi-winner (multi-member) systems, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll single-winner systems are, by definition, winner-take-all. Multi-winner systems may be proportional or winner-take-all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>However, he noted that between these two broad families of systems, \u2018mixed systems\u2019 have begun to emerge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes it makes sense to elect just one person in instances where there is a single position,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cHowever, when electing a legislative body, there is a real decision to make between using single-winner and multi-winner districts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(This means the) choice of electoral system has profound consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/415019\/3-significant-changes-proposed-for-south-africa-including-restructured-elections-and-easier-access-to-pension-funds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">3 significant changes proposed for South Africa \u2013 including restructured elections and easier access to pension funds<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi has announced his intention to introduce the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":217095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-432388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432388"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432406,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432388\/revisions\/432406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}