WC IEC hoping to have half of its voting districts counted by midnight

CAPE TOWN - The Electoral Commission in the Western Cape said it hopes to have counted half of its voting districts by midnight.

But with around 35% of the districts now captured, provincial electoral head, Michael Hendrickse, doesn’t want to put a time on when the process will be concluded. 

Traditionally, the Western Cape vote is declared within two days.

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The Democratic Alliance (DA) is currently hovering just under 50%, followed by the African National Congress (ANC) at around 20% and the Patriotic Alliance (PA) running in third with 11% of the votes captured so far.
 
Of the 1,572 voting districts in the province, only ten still need to complete their counting. 
 
Otherwise, vote capturing is moving swiftly. 
 
Hendrickse has confirmed the Christian Brothers College School in Parklands and Bastion Primary School in Brackenfell were the last two to close their doors after 1am. 
 
Both voting stations had over 7,000 registered voters and among the biggest voting districts in the city. 
 
"To give you an idea at the voting station that closed last night at CBC-St John's in the Parklands area, there were 27 ballot boxes. There were so many voters, so you can imagine when you have to open those boxes - sort, count, sort, count."
 
Hendrickse said that given the technological glitches experienced on Wednesday, he did not want to predict when an outcome could be expected. 
 
The metro, with over 2 million voters, is the biggest voting bloc and results are slowly trickling in.