Elections: All You Need To Know

Local government elections choose the public representatives who serve on municipal councils. These councils deal with local concerns such as electricity, municipal service delivery and safety. The elections matter because voters choose people and parties that will make decisions affecting daily life in their communities.

Each voter receives two ballots. The first selects a person to represent the voter’s geographic ward. That person may stand for a political party or as an independent candidate. The second ballot selects a political party for the municipality through proportional representation.

The 2026 contest covers just over 10,500 council seats. Almost 137,000 candidates are competing, so voters will be choosing among many individuals and parties. The Electoral Commission of South Africa has recruited about 188,500 officials and trained them to help administer the election.

The 2026 local government election is unusually large in the number of contestants. A total of 546 political parties are taking part. Almost 137,000 candidates are also standing for election. Together, they are competing for just over 10,500 seats on municipal councils.

This scale creates a demanding task for the Electoral Commission of South Africa. It must register contestants, prepare ballots, train staff, manage voting stations and count the votes. The number of parties can also make ballots longer and election administration more complicated. Dr Oscar van Heerden described the party total as a logistical nightmare.

The scale has already created operational risks. Professor Sethulego Matebisi noted that 66% of ballots had been reprinted, creating a further reprinting concern. The IEC has recruited about 188,500 electoral officials, including presiding officers, area managers and electoral officers, to support the process.

Voters receive two ballots because local government representation has two parts. One ballot chooses a person for the voter’s local geographic ward. The other chooses the party the voter would like to be in charge of the municipality through proportional representation.

A ward vote is about a specific individual. That candidate may represent a political party or be an independent. The successful ward representative is the person residents can approach about local problems, including electricity, poor municipal services or safety concerns. The PR ballot is cast for a party rather than an individual.

The two votes therefore serve different purposes. The ward ballot connects voters with a local representative. The PR ballot contributes to the distribution of party representation on the municipal council. Michael Atkins suggested that ward votes not counting toward PR allocations could make ward elections more focused and meaningful.

Hundreds of parties and tens of thousands of candidates make an election harder to organise. The IEC must ensure every eligible party and candidate appears correctly, prepare the right ballots for each voting area, and deliver them securely. Officials must then process and count many different choices without errors.

The article describes the number of parties as a logistical nightmare. Ballots may need more names or party information, making design, proofing and printing more demanding. The scale also increases the risk that ballots must be corrected and reprinted. Professor Sethulego Matebisi warned of a reprinting risk after 66% of ballots had already been reprinted.

Counting can also require more careful checking because votes are divided among many contestants. The IEC has recruited about 188,500 trained officials to support voting and administration. Michael Atkins said careful legislative amendments could reduce the problem, including separating ward votes from PR seat allocations.

Special voting arrangements allow eligible voters to cast ballots when illness, work, old age or another stated difficulty prevents them from voting normally on election day. They are intended to make participation possible for people who cannot travel to a voting station at the usual time.

The IEC approved 2.6 million special votes. It also scheduled more than 600,000 home visits for Monday and Tuesday. During a home visit, election staff can assist an approved voter at home rather than requiring that person to travel to a voting station. These arrangements are part of the IEC’s preparation for the election.

Older voters make up much of the home-visit demand. The article says 80% of approved home visits are for voters older than 60. Women account for 74% of approved special votes. The figures show how large the alternative voting operation is alongside ordinary voting.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa organises the election and supports the process at voting stations. It recruits and trains officials, prepares ballots, manages special votes and provides ways for voters to check registration details and voting locations. The IEC has also assured voters that systems are in place to prevent vote rigging.

The commission recruited about 188,500 officials, including presiding officers, deputy presiding officers, area managers and electoral officers. It also promised there would be no repeat of the 2024 incident when the national results centre leader board went blank for two hours. These measures aim to produce a technically sound election.

However, technical readiness does not remove legal disputes. Professor Sethulego Matebisi called post-election litigation the real risk. The article points to the election deadline, the Constitutional Court’s ANC ruling, ballot reprinting, and the outstanding MK Party dashboard outage as possible areas of concern.

Proportional representation, or PR, is a way of allocating council seats according to the share of votes won by each party. A party that receives a larger share of the PR vote receives more PR seats. A party with a smaller share receives fewer. This helps translate overall voter support into council representation.

For example, if a party wins roughly one quarter of the PR votes, the PR allocation would generally aim to give it about one quarter of the available PR seats, subject to the election’s allocation rules. The PR ballot is therefore different from the ward ballot, which selects a named person for a geographic area.

In this election, voters use the PR ballot to choose the party they want in charge of their municipality. Michael Atkins proposed that ward votes should not count toward PR seat allocations. He argued this could leave ward elections with fewer candidates and make them more meaningful.