Behind steel bars and under tight security and the watchful eye of eagle-eyed warders, hundreds of inmates took to the polls in Durban’s Westville prison on Wednesday. Orange dominated at a voting station in the Durban suburb, but this was by no means a show of support for any political party. Instead, it was the colour of the overalls worn by most of the inmates. As of September 2018, the five sections that make up Westville prison housed just shy of 8,000 inmates, according to figures provided by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) this week. Of those, around 813 registered to vote during two days of voter registration, the IEC figures showed.
However, the IEC said on Wednesday that the exact number of actual voters would remain unknown until the process came to an end. According to IEC presiding officer Fikile Nxumalo, there was no voters’ roll for the prison. Instead, provided the inmates had their ID books and were verified as registered voters, they were allowed to cast...
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