Durban – KwaZulu-Natal has the highest number of incomplete addresses on the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) voters' roll, officials said on Monday.
There are almost 1.4 million incomplete addresses for the 5.3 million registered voters in the province, with 291 005 coming from eThekwini Metro alone.
The closest to the metro's outstanding address figure is Umgungundlovu District Municipality at 41 000 incomplete addresses.
The drive for voter registrations addresses comes after the Constitutional Court in 2016 ruled that the IEC must obtain sufficient particulars of the location of voters by the end of June this year.
Provincial Electoral Officer (PEO) Mawethu Mosery met with journalists at the IEC offices in Westville, Durban, where he announced voter registration for the 2019 general elections would be opened.
"We will have all of our 4 793 voting stations in the province opened this coming weekend, between 08:00 and 17:00."
'Pushing hard'
Mosery said the IEC in the province was "pushing hard" for the completion of addresses by voters, as they begin preparations for national elections.
"For the future, we are looking to geocode every home in the country, but for now, we are urging registered voters to visit their stations and update these details."
He said it was easy to update an address.
"It will not take a long time for the average person. You will be out of the voting station in no time."
He said that, in eThekwini, it appeared that many had registered in 1998 and not updated details.
"We do understand that eThekwini Metro carries the highest population however many have not updated their details in a long time – even from before the year 2000."
According to Mosery, elections were expected to take place between May and August 2019.
"We have begun preparations and are ensuring we are up to date in every way possible as elections come up on us."
Mosery said acceptable types of addresses were street addresses, site/house addresses, residential complex addresses, a village name, tribal authority and town, or a descriptive place name for a rural address.
He said addresses could also be updated online at www.elections.org.za/MyIEC. Voters could also SMS their ID number to 32810 and would receive an SMS containing the address of their voting station.
