Ratepayers threaten court action to halt elections

DURBAN July 21 Sapa

A Durban ratepayers' federation on Friday threatened to seek a
court injunction to halt the November 1 local government elections
because the registration "shambles" would deny thousands the right
to vote.

United Ratepayers' Federation chairman Brendan Willmer told
Sapa that if the voters' roll was not scrapped, the federation
would apply to the Constitutional Court in an attempt to block the
November 1 elections.

"The sheer scale of omissions and flawed information on the
voters' roll is such that it will undermine the legitimacy of the
electoral process itself," Willmer said.

The federation, which represents 20 Durban metro ratepayers'
bodies, had conducted a sample test of 13000 potential voters which
showed that about 12.2 per cent who had registered for the
elections would not be able to vote.

Legitimate registration, he said, was no guarantee that one's
name would appear on the voters' roll.

"They've effectively been disenfranchised by incompetence,"
Willmer said.

The sample showed the names of about 130,000 people in the
Durban metropolitan area had probably been left off the roll.

Incompetent registration staff were largely to blame, although
fraud was "not beyond the realms of probability", Willmer said.

The federation wanted the voters' roll scrapped and a fresh
start made. A postponement of the election date was therefore
imperative.

Proper checks and balances would need to be put in place to
ensure similar mistakes were not repeated.

Willmer said his organisation had a good chance of winning its
case should the government decide to go ahead with the present
voters' roll.

Several lawyers had told him they would be able to prove that
an unacceptably high proportion of people would not be able to
exercise their voting rights.

The threat of court action follows sharp criticism of the
registration process in KwaZulu/Natal.

Registration officials have been condemned for "raffling"
shopping vouchers and a car, and for paying officials for returned
registration forms. Some critics claim instances where the names of
the dead appeared on the roll.

Durban metro council deputy mayor Mark Louw, a spokesman for
the Democratic Party, said court action "will not achieve
anything".

Election problems needed political solutions.