Counting is progressing well in the Western Cape, although some delays could be expected, says Michael Hendrickse, the IEC’s Western Cape electoral officer.
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He adds that the last voting station to close was Parklands in Cape Town, at around 1am on Thursday morning.
He attributed some of the delays to issues with voter management devices, personnel and training. ‘Voters didn’t deserve the service that they got. But saying that, it also wasn’t the whole province [that experienced delays]. That raises very important things for us. There will definitely be some introspection about why some of our voters had this very bad experience,’ he told News24.
‘You have to commend South Africans that were willing to stand so long because it was important that they do that.’
By 10am, 23.66% of the Western Cape’s votes had been captured, accounting for 298 850 votes.
Hendrickse says metro areas with larger populations could take longer to complete, noting that late vote taking was likely to delay ballot counting.
‘That has a knock-on effect in terms of finalising [the counting] because there are three ballots we need to count. That will definitely have an effect, especially in the metro.’
Here are the results as of 12:43pm:
![](https://www.capetownetc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-30-124527-600x681.png)
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Picture: Frikkie Kapp / Gallo Images