South African commission to investigate claims of voter fraud
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – South African police said on Thursday 19 people have been arrested in three KwaZulu-Natal municipalities on charges of "double voting" during Wednesday’s national elections.
The arrests were made in Port Shepstone, Hluhluwe and Danhauser.
While all voters received an ink stamp on their left thumbs before casting votes, there have been numerous claims that it was possible to wash the ink off.
The South African Electoral Commission on Thursday said it will urgently conduct an audit of results and votes cast in a sample of voting stations to ascertain if double voting occurred.
The audit will cover a statistically representative sample of voting stations as well as all voting stations where complaints or allegations of double voting have been received.
Despite this development, the commission said the voting process at most of the 22,900 polling stations across the country went smoothly.
With almost a third of votes counted, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has projected an ANC victory with 57.3% of the vote, followed by the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) with 21.5% and the EFF with 9.7%.
However, both the ANC and the DA are set to get a lower proportion of the vote than in the 2014 election in which the ANC won 62.1% and the DA 22.1%.
Earlier opinion polls had the EFF doubling its support since the last election when it secured 6.35% of the vote.
-0- PANAS CU/AR 9May2019
