Final registration weekend: IEC urges citizens to secure place on voters’ roll

More than 23 000 voting stations ready as IEC launches final voter registration drive. The Electoral Commission (IEC) has urged eligible South Africans who have not yet registered to vote, updated their registration details, or verified their residential addresses to take advantage of the final voter registration weekend at voting stations across the country. The IEC said the weekend of August 1 and 2 would be the last chance forvoters to registerin person ahead of the upcoming elections.

“The Commission calls on all eligible South Africans who have not yet registered as voters; those who are registered but have not yet inspected their address details for completeness, or those who have moved residence since they last registered, to use this final opportunity to secure their place on the voters’ roll,” Electoral Commission chief executive Sy Mamabolo said. Addressing the media on the state of readiness for the second round of voter registration, Mamabolo said the Commission had completed its final operational preparations and was ready to open thousands of voting stations nationwide. “As part of these preparations, the number of voting districts has been revised from 23,706 to 23,699 following the optimisation of voting station arrangements based on voter activity recorded during the first registration weekend.

For the finalvoter registrationweekend, the Commission will operate 23,699 voting stations across the country,” he said. All registration stations will operate from 8am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday, with more than 48,000 electoral officials deployed to assist voters. “The Commission will once again deploy 48,212 trained electoral officials who will be on hand to welcome and assist eligible voters to register, update their details or verify their registration information ahead of the elections,” Mamabolo said.

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The first voter registration weekend, held on June 20 and 21, recorded more than three million registration transactions, reflecting continued public participation in the democratic process. Mamabolo said theIECwas hopeful that the same level of participation would continue during this weekend’s final in-person registration drive. “Following the first voter registration weekend in June 2026, the Electoral Commission has to date recorded more than 815 000 voter registration transactions,” he said.

“Of these, approximately 603 572 (74%) were processed through the Online Voter Registration (OVR) portal, underscoring the growing use of the digital online registration platform among South Africans. The highest levels of online registration activity were recorded in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape,” Mamabolo added.

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