Premier Alan Winde said that the IEC's application to the Constitutional Court risked setting a dangerous precedent.
Last month's voter registration weekend was cancelled due to high infection and mortality rates due to COVID-19 and the IEC believes the inability to register could be grounds for elections in October being challenged.
IEC inquiry chairperson, former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke, said that it was not possible that the elections scheduled for October would be free and fair. He said that COVID-19 restrictions would not only affect political parties and their campaigning efforts but also voters.
South Africa will see over 400 candidates battle it out in 95 by-elections in 55 municipalities across all nine provinces.
For two days, the Independent Electoral Commission will hold hearings on draft regulations for the Political Party Funding Act which was signed into law earlier this year.
It said the validation exercise was conducted independently by Statistics South Africa based on voting station result data from 1,020 voting stations.
Not all of them were new to election contestation but collectively, they could not secure more than 40,000 votes.
The governing African National Congress said it was impressed by the way the IEC handled the challenges it had faced.
The commission announced on Thursday that it had established an audit to probe the extent of voter fraud after political parties complained that the ink used on voters’ thumbs was easy to remove.
The IEC said by 10pm there should be a clear picture of which parties had done well in the national and provincial elections.
The commission met with angry party leaders on Thursday morning following allegations of voter fraud.
These issues, among others, were reported by observers monitoring the elections in Cape Town.
Among these areas is Umlazi township where residents were protesting on Mangosuthu Highway and barricaded roads.
IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini was reportedly unable to confirm if the ballot boxes belonged to the commission but the IEC has launched an investigation into the matter.
According to the IEC, 26.5 million voters are eligible to cast their votes at the polls on 8 May.
The 2.4 million registered voters, more than a quarter of whom will be casting their ballot for the first time, will have not fewer than 299 parties to choose from.
The youth have been the main target of political parties whose leaders will be crisscrossing the country in a bid to register first-time voters.
The IEC is encouraging young people who have not yet registered to do so this weekend and those who have registered before, to change their address online.
