IEC applies for leave to appeal court order for it to expand voting stations abroad to include honorary consulates
The Electoral Court last week rejected the IEC’s argument that honorary consuls had no state power and therefore couldn’t conduct elections.
The Electoral Commission briefed the media on its readiness for the 2024 elections. Picture: @IECSouthAfrica/X
JOHANNESBURG - The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) applied for leave to appeal a court order for it to expand voting stations abroad to include honorary consulates.
The application was brought by the Democratic Alliance (DA) earlier in 2024, who received complaints from South Africans living in Perth, Australia, who couldn’t use the honorary consulate as a voting station.
ALSO READ: Court ruling for IEC to set up more voting stations abroad will be ‘logistically difficult’ - EISA
The IEC argued that honorary consuls had no state power and therefore couldn’t conduct elections. However, that argument was rejected by the Electoral Court last week.
The Electoral Court is still to hand out the reasoned judgment regarding the matter.
The IEC argued that voting stations abroad could only be set up in South African embassies, consulates, and offices of the high commissioner.
However, the Electoral Court’s order now included honorary consuls to this list.
Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, Masego Shehuri, said the IEC wrote to the Department of International Relations to ascertain who bore the responsibility of ensuring honorary consuls had the required staff and equipment to administer the elections.
“[The IEC wants] to establish from them the steps they are able to take in the time remaining before elections to give effect to the order of the court.”
The commission said there are over 58,000 South Africans registered to vote abroad.