Following the certification of the voters’ roll, 26 756 898 million voters are eligible to cast their votes in the 8 May national and provincial elections. Of those, 55% are women, according to the Electoral Commission.
In a statement, the IEC said the voters’ roll was certified and published on the Electoral Commission website earlier this week following the publication of the provisional voters’ roll for scrutiny and objection.
Digital copies of the voters’ roll were also being provided to all political parties which will contest the elections.
“Since its inception ahead of the 1999 national and provincial elections, the voters’ roll has shown steady growth of over 47 percent and contains the highest number of registered voters to date, recording an increase of 1 366 748 voters since 2014,” the IEC said.
| National and Provincial Elections | Registered voters |
| 1999 | 18.17 million |
| 2004 | 20.67 million |
| 2009 | 23.18 million |
| 2014 | 25.39 million |
| 2019 | 26.74 million |
Of the 26.74 million registered voters, 14 716 879 were women (55 percent), the IEC said. This was four percent above the demographic split of the South African population according to Statistics South Africa (based on 2018 Midyear Population Estimates).
The provinces with the highest number of registered voters are Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape:
| Province | Female | % of Prov Total | Male | % of Prov Total | Prov Total | % of Total |
| Eastern Cape | 1,917,868 | 57.03% | 1,445,293 | 42.97% | 3,363,161 | 12.57% |
| Free State | 806,553 | 55.15% | 655,984 | 44.85% | 1,462,537 | 5.47% |
| Gauteng | 3,307,395 | 51.83% | 3,073,904 | 48.17% | 6,381,299 | 23.85% |
| KwaZulu-Natal | 3,115,942 | 56.40% | 2,408,726 | 43.60% | 5,524,668 | 20.65% |
| Limpopo | 1,548,810 | 59.38% | 1,059,663 | 40.62% | 2,608,473 | 9.75% |
| Mpumalanga | 1,066,424 | 54.64% | 885,373 | 45.36% | 1,951,797 | 7.29% |
| North West | 896,851 | 52.67% | 805,879 | 47.33% | 1,702,730 | 6.36% |
| Northern Cape | 336,084 | 53.65% | 290,408 | 46.35% | 626,492 | 2.34% |
| Western Cape | 1,717,286 | 54.89% | 1,411,363 | 45.11% | 3,128,649 | 11.69% |
| Out of Country | 3,666 | 51.69% | 3,426 | 48.31% | 7,092 | 0.03% |
| Total | 14,716,879 | 55.00% | 12,040,019 | 45.00% | 26,756,898 |
In terms of age, the biggest category of voters are those aged 30-39 years old (6 685 472) which represents 24.99 percent of the roll.
“Only those voters whose names appear on the certified voters’ roll are eligible to vote in the 8 May elections. Voters must take their ID document (either a green bar-coded ID, a smartcard ID or a valid temporary ID certificate) with them when they go to vote at their voting station,” the IEC said.
