On Friday morning, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) experienced a significant technical glitch that resulted in the disappearance of numbers on the leaderboard for at least two hours.
This incident led to widespread concern among political parties, with some demanding explanations and the Democratic Alliance (DA) threatening legal action.
The sudden absence of the leaderboard numbers caused panic among political parties. Representatives in the hall were visibly unsettled, although they clapped their hands when the numbers eventually returned. Despite this, an air of unease remained regarding the accuracy and integrity of the displayed results.
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In a press briefing on Friday afternoon, Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo addressed the issue, stating that the technical glitch was unfortunate and should not have occurred.
He assured South Africans that the results were authentic and had not been tampered with. “The commission regrets the incident this morning when the leader boards at the results operation centre’s and our website could not display the results,” Mamabolo said.
Mamabolo clarified that the IEC’s results systems did not crash but merely experienced a technical glitch. “We wish to emphasise that our system did not crash and no data was compromised,” he stated. He explained that the incident was related to the activation of a necessary control feature that temporarily stopped the display of the leader boards.
The Chief Electoral Officer highlighted that the commission had a comprehensive IT plan in place, including backup and recovery protocols.
He emphasized that the IEC is committed to ensuring the accurate capturing and auditing of results for the 2024 national and provincial elections. “As indicated yesterday, counting at all voting stations is complete, and we have all the results at our local offices.
“The process underway is capturing them on our system for tallying and seat allocation,” Mamabolo concluded.
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