Turned away at a Cape Town special vote? You can still vote Tuesday

If you were approved for a special vote in Cape Town and your voting station had no ballots on Monday, you haven't lost your vote. Special voting runs again on Tuesday 3 November from 08:00 to 17:00, and if you miss that too, you can vote at your own station on Wednesday 4 November (SAnews, Cape Argus).

At 08:00 on Monday, 217 voting stations in the Cape metro couldn't open because special vote ballots hadn't arrived. The Western Cape's provincial electoral officer, Michael Hendrickse, apologised and said stations were opening as ballots were delivered (SAnews, EWN).

Which Cape Town areas were hit?

The delays covered 217 voting districts in 33 wards, according to IOL. Areas named include:

Source: IOL / Cape Times

Some stations were still without ballots at 10:00, two hours after voting should have started (IOL). The IEC says the problem was limited to the Cape metro, with stations in the rest of the Western Cape running normally (SAnews). Nationally, close to 99% of stations opened on time (SAnews).

Why were the ballots late?

It goes back to a Constitutional Court order on 15 October that admitted candidates in six municipalities. The IEC decided it couldn't run a fair election by adding only those, so it also admitted 32 other parties and their candidates, deputy chief electoral officer Masego Shiburi said on Monday (The Citizen).

That made 28 million ballots that had already been printed and delivered unusable. The IEC had 33 million ballots reprinted, and Cape Town's were in the last print run, which only finished on Sunday. Shiburi said the hold-up was in packaging: numbering the ballots, adding security features and binding them into books of 100 (The Citizen).

At Monday's briefing, he said all remaining Cape Town ballots were already in the IEC's storage sites and were being sent out to stations (The Citizen).

What should you do if you couldn't vote on Monday?

Go back on Tuesday. Hendrickse said both days, 2 and 3 November, would be used so that everyone approved for a special vote can cast it (SAnews).

• Vote only at the station where you're registered. A station special vote can't be cast anywhere else (gov.za).
• Take a valid South African ID: a smart ID card, green barcoded ID book or temporary identity certificate from Home Affairs (gov.za).
• Stations are open from 08:00 to 17:00 on Tuesday (gov.za).

A station can close after Monday if every approved voter there has already voted. It then reopens for normal voting on 4 November (SAnews).

What if you can't make it on Tuesday either?

You can still vote on Wednesday 4 November at your own voting station, with no extra permission needed. "Anybody can come on Wednesday as a normal election day and they don't need permission," Hendrickse said (Cape Argus). On election day, stations are open from 07:00 to 21:00 (IEC timetable).

The same applies to home visit voters. Officials won't come back to an address if you weren't home the first time, but you can vote at your station on 4 November (gov.za).

How many special voters are there in the Western Cape?

Just under 300,000 special votes were approved in the province: about 72,000 home visits and about 225,000 at voting stations, Hendrickse said at the launch of the provincial results centre (Cape Argus). Nationally, 2,655,067 voters were approved (gov.za).

Special votes aren't counted on 2 and 3 November. They're sealed and counted with the election day ballots on 4 November (gov.za).

How do you check your status and voting station?

Use the IEC's own channels before you leave home (gov.za):

Source: gov.za. The contact centre is open 07:00 to 19:00 on Monday and Tuesday, and 07:00 to 21:00 on Wednesday.