Pretoria – As the results of the 2014 General Elections continue to trickle in at the National Results Operating Centre (ROC) in Pretoria, the provincial results centres are optimistic that all the votes would be captured and audited by the end of the day.
IEC spokespeople at the provincial ROC told SAnews that since the counting of votes started late last night, the process has been going smoothly.
In the Northern Cape, half of the votes had already been counted by 11.30am, with the only votes outstanding from the six municipalities in far out flung areas. The province had 694 voting stations.
Project co-ordinator at the provincial ROC, Molefi Mohapi, said everything was going well and only minor objections were received from the political parties.
“No major problems were reported during the casting of the votes, except in one voting station where some people complained that they were refused entry to the voting station but we’ve managed to sort that out. We are hoping to be done by the end of the day, even at lunch time,” said Mohapi.
In Mpumalanga, the counting of votes was completed at 5am today and the officials are currently busy capturing and auditing them. There were 1 678 voting stations allocated at 402 wards in 18 municipalities.
“We’ve completed counting at 5am and now we are busy capturing and auditing, which include verification of the votes,” Jabu Mthethwa, Manager of Electoral Operations told SAnews.
The province also had not received any objections from the political parties.
“We only had a slight disturbance last night after the closing of voting, where there was a power cut in the centre at Gert Sibande District, due to a problem with one transformer. The start of counting the votes was delayed by an hour. Fortunately we had plan B, which we implemented,” Mthethwa noted.
The counting of votes in other provinces was also reported to be going smoothly. Officials in Cape Town said they are optimistic that by the end of the day, the whole process would be completed and would only then release a report. – SAnews.gov.za
