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More than 70 000 overseas South Africans registered to vote

Dear Editor

The VEC 10 window for South Africans to move their registration to vote overseas in 2024 has now closed.

More than 70,000 citizens living, working, studying, or traveling overseas are now registered to vote abroad – doubling from approximately 31,314 in the last national elections in 2019.

Despite the Democratic Alliance (DA) winning a court case to include honorary consuls as voting stations in this election, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has failed to implement this in time for citizens to use the VEC 10 opportunity.

For the hundreds of thousands of South Africans living abroad, this is hugely disappointing, especially for those citizens living in cities like Perth who now face a four-hour flight to the nearest voting station in Australia. Citizens in New Zealand, Canada, and the United States face similar logistical and financial challenges.

The DA will continue to fight for better rights for all South Africans living or traveling abroad – in particular, for the IEC to properly serve locations with a high density of citizens.

While the IEC has let down a significant number of South Africans overseas, we encourage each and every one of the 70,000-plus registered citizens to make their mark on May 17 or 18, 2024 (not May 29, which is voting day in South Africa).

Please remember to check your nearest diplomatic mission to confirm which date is applicable to your country.

If every South African registered overseas votes in this election, we can help get a Member of Parliament elected to the National Assembly – your vote could quite literally change history.

For all the latest updates and a list of current voting stations overseas, please head to http://www.da-abroad.org/.

Regards

Ludre Stevens
DA Abroad Chairperson

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