Cape Town - The Cape Independence Party has been allocated an additional seat in the Cape Town Metro, following an Electoral Commission recount of votes.
The Electoral Commission in a statement on Thursday said it had, following its consideration of objections material to the outcome of an election, amended the results and seat allocation in the Cape Town Metropolitan Council.
The Commission said it had established that the DA had been allocated an additional seat as a consequence of errors.
“This matter involved, among others, consultations with Party Liaison Committee in the Metro, submissions by affected parties and recounts in identified voting stations.
“The culmination of this process is that the Cape Independence Party is now allocated an additional seat, which had been awarded to the Democratic Alliance after the municipal elections held on 1 November 2021,” the Commission said.
“This process was undertaken after the Cape Independence Party had lodged, with the Electoral Court, an appeal against a finding of the Commission that the Cape Independence Party had failed to lodge its objection in time and with the necessary details. The Court remitted the matter to the Electoral Commission for resolution notwithstanding the time delay.”
The Cape Independence Party had in August 2021 changed its name and abbreviated name from CAPE PARTY/KAAPSE PARTY to Cape Independence Party with an abbreviated name being CAPEXIT, which may have caused confusion.
The Commission said recounts were conducted in the presence of agents representing political parties and candidates that had contested the affected wards.
“The Commission established that – with respect to the initial results dealing with proportional representatives in the Cape Town Metro – the DA had been allocated an additional seat as a consequence of errors that occurred, partly as a result of confusion emanating from the change in the abbreviated name, at some of these voting stations.
“While the total number of votes has generally remained constant, the recounts revealed the misallocation of votes.
“The error has been corrected and the wishes of the voters are now correctly reflected in the result system,” the Commission said.
They added that in all these instances the original results’ sheets had been signed off by the party agents representing political parties, other contestants and observers, during the counting process in November 2021.
“The Electoral Commission has informed the affected parties and has now written to the office of the Municipal Manager in the City of Cape Town to effect the correction of seats in the legislature in line with the corrected and declared results.”
The results in the other 23 100 plus voting stations across the country remain unaffected.
Cape Independence Party leader Jack Miller said: "We are very pleased that justice has finally been served. It has taken seven months and we had to take the IEC to court, the Electoral court; we won our case against the IEC which forced them to give us a recount.
“The IEC said we got zero votes in about 65 different voting stations but we had voters calling us, telling us that they and their whole family voted for us. It’s impossible that it was zero at those voting stations. Only after we won our court case did the IEC recount those voting stations, following those recounts we gained a significant number of votes which now award us an additional seat.”
Cape Times