At least 20 people have been arrested in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province for allegedly voting more than once, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) revealed on Thursday.
IEC officials are quoted by the privately run eNCA news channel as saying the voters were arrested as they attempted to vote for a second time after removing the indelible ink on their thumbs.
Those arrested are from Dan Houser, Port Shepstone and Hluhluwe towns, according to the officials.
The announcement of the arrests came as the IEC continued with vote counting following Wednesday’s national and provincial elections.
With 45.8 percent of the national ballots counted as at 3.30pm (1330 GMT), the governing African National Congress was in the lead after garnering 56.6 percent of the vote.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance was second at 23.4 percent of the tally, followed by Economic Freedom Fighters (9.3 percent), Freedom Front Plus (2.8 percent) and Inkatha Freedom Party (2.1 percent).
South Africa uses the Proportional Representation electoral system in which the electorate votes for a political party, not individuals.
The political party gets a share of seats in Parliament in direct proportion to the number of votes won in the election.
Each registered political party submits a list of candidates to the IEC in advance of the election, and the IEC determines the number of seats for each party based on the election results.
JN/APA