The Electoral Commission has, following its consideration of objections material to the outcome of an election, amended the results and seat allocation in the Cape Town Metropolitan Council.
This matter involved, among others, consultations with Party Liaison Committee in the Metro, submissions by affected parties and recounts in identified voting stations.
The culmination of this process is that the Cape Independence Party is now allocated an additional seat, which had been awarded to the Democratic Alliance after the municipal elections held on 1 November 2021.
This process was undertaken after the Cape Independence Party had lodged, with the Electoral Court, an appeal against a finding of the Commission that the Cape Independence Party had failed to lodge its objection in
time and with the necessary details.
The Court remitted the matter to the Electoral Commission for resolution notwithstanding the time delay.
Noting that the Cape Independence Party had, in August 2021, changed its name and abbreviated name from CAPE PARTY/KAAPSE PARTY to Cape Independence Party with an abbreviated name being CAPEXIT which
may have caused confusion, the Commission pursued the process outlined above.
Recounts were conducted in the presence of agents representing political parties and candidates that had contested the affected wards.
The Commission established that - with respect to the initial results dealing with proportional representatives in the Cape Town Metro - the Democratic Alliance had been allocated an additional seat as a consequence of errors
that occurred, partly as a result of confusion emanating from the change in the abbreviated name, at some of these voting stations.
While the total number of votes has generally remained constant, the recounts revealed the misallocation of votes.
The error has been corrected and the wishes of the voters are now correctly reflected in the result system.
It is important to indicate that in all these instances the original results’ sheets had been signed off by the party agents representing political parties, other contestants and observers during the counting process in November 2021.
The Electoral Commission has informed the affected parties and has now written to the office of the Municipal Manager in the City of Cape Town to effect the correction of seats in the legislature in line with the corrected and declared results.
Source: Government of South Africa