Parliament, Wednesday, 2 December 2020 – The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs has approved the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill (B22-2020) and will recommend to the National Assembly to adopt it.
Subsequent to an extensive public participation process where the committee received 12 305 submissions from the public, as well as a summary thereof via the Dear South Africa website, and another 28 submissions from other stakeholders, various concerns were raised.
As a result of the public comments, the committee resolved to remove clauses 14 and 21 of the Bill, where it stated that the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) may prescribe a different voting method. The committee agreed that voting method is a policy matter that cannot be left to the IEC alone to decide, even though the IEC had mentioned that the intention was to only allow for testing of such alternatives.
The Electoral Laws Amendment Bill seeks to amend three pieces of legislation, namely, the Electoral Commission Act, 1996 (Act No. 51 of 1996) (“Electoral Commission Act”), the Electoral Act, 1998 (Act No. 73 of 1998) (“Electoral Act”) and the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act, 2000 (Act No. 27 of 2000) (“Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act”), in preparation for the forthcoming general local government elections in 2021.
The committee is convinced that it has done justice to the work it was mandated to do and is hopeful that the National Assembly will concur.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON HOME AFFAIRS, ADV BONGANI BONGO.
For media enquiries or interviews with the Chairperson, please contact the committee’s Media Officer:
Name: Malatswa Molepo (Mr)
Parliamentary Communication Services
Tel: 021 403 8438
Cell: 081 512 7920
E-mail: mmolepo@parliament.gov.za
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