Africa-Press – South-Africa. While the ANC had experienced difficulties registering delegates at its 55th national elective conference in December, the DA has resorted to a reliable electronic method to conduct elections at its upcoming congress over the weekend.
Speaking to News24, DA presiding officer Gregory Krumbock said the party would use “cutting edge” technology to conduct leadership elections.
The party first adopted this system in 2020 for its federal elections, which Krumbock considered a success and maintained greater secrecy than the traditional and manual approach often adopted.
“We did that very successfully in 2020 during Covid where people throughout the country, who received their OpaVotes via SMS, and across the length and breadth of South Africa and literally people in ones and twos were voting in a solitary way that did lead to, I believe, a far more secret ballot,” he said.
This contrasts with the ANC’s elections months prior, where a new system to register delegates had technical glitches that delayed the conference by hours and affected the delivery of party president Cyril Ramaphosa’s political report.
The DA used two different methods to conduct the constitutional amendment, resolution, and the election of its leadership.
For the constitutional amendment and resolution, a voting device the size of a credit card with a yes and no button will be handed out to delegates on the weekend.
The chairperson of the session, Kevin Mileham, will lead the process and instruct delegates to vote using these devices where an “instantaneous result” will be the same process followed for the resolution on Sunday.
For the leaders’ elections, delegates would receive a unique code on their cellphones which they would use to vote, said Krumbock.
The party will verify delegates’ cellphone numbers on Saturday to ensure they are “current and valid cellphone numbers”.
An OpaVote link with a unique code will be sent on Sunday morning.
Krumbock said “by putting in your code, you will then have your ballot papers opened. You will then electronically vote on either one or two candidates on your ballot paper, which is the case for the leadership election between John Steenhuisen and Dr Mpho Phalatse”.
“Or for the other two elections, where there are multiple candidates and one division for the federal chair where there are three candidates.”
He added delegates would have to rank every candidate by whom they preferred the most and “that candidate will be given the highest ranking right through to the candidate they prefer the least”.
The votes will take place from 06:00 to 09:00 on Sunday and will be locked down by presiding officers, agents, and candidates until 14:00 when the results will be announced.
This method, said Krumbock, would simplify the process, reduce human error and speed up the voting procedure, which often took hours to complete.
“Each individual delegate just votes for their candidate of choice, and no one has to capture; it is done automatically.”
He added the challenges faced with traditional voting were “if someone does not get an outright majority, you then have to vote again, and if you still don’t have an outright majority, you might have a large number of candidates for very few positions”.
Krumbock said the system offered delegates the option to vote in the comfort of their own space and “far away from any delegates who might want to discuss it with them”, adding it was easier to assemble than using a manual system.
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