ELECTIONS FAKE NEWS
How not to be duped! And PS, people over 60 don’t automatically get special votes
A recent viral message circulated on social media misleadingly claimed that the IEC has permitted people 60 and older to vote before the 29 May polls by applying for a special vote. While the prospect of skipping long queues may be alluring, don’t be fooled. The IEC says that message did not come from the commission. It cautioned against falling prey to election misinformation. Here are some tips about how to prevent that.
As the elections draw nearer, incidents of misinformation, disinformation and fake news multiply, as bad actors seek to confuse people about how the voting process works.
A message containing misinformation has been circulating on WhatsApp, mistakenly encouraging voters older than 60 to apply for a special vote to cast their ballots early.
The message claimed that the Electoral Commission of South Africa had given registered voters aged 60 and older leeway to vote before voting day on 29 May.
The misleading message read: “Important for everyone over 60. Voting day is 29 May. If you want to avoid long queues and parking problems: The IEC has given permission for everyone over 60 to vote on the 27 and 28 at the polling station where you are registered. Just text (SMS) your ID no to 32249.”
But the message is categorically untrue, and was not disseminated by the commission, the IEC confirmed on Monday.
“The Electoral Commission re-emphasises the general principle of election administration that voters must vote where they are registered. However, in the event a voter intends to be in a different voting district on voting day, such a voter must notify the Commission of their intended absence from their voting district and must identify the voting station where they wish to cast the vote,” the IEC said.
Read more in Daily Maverick: A complete guide to voting in the 2024 South African general elections
Who qualifies for a special vote?
According to the IEC’s criteria, only people who cannot travel to voting stations due to being physically infirm, disabled, or pregnant, and those who cannot vote at their voting station on election day, qualify for a special vote.
The application appears to work on an honour system that allows voters to cast their ballots two days before election day on 27 and 28 May.
Remember that the deadline for applying for special votes closes this week, on Friday, 3 May. You can apply for a special vote on the IEC’s website, or by SMSing your identity number to 32249 for voting station visits only.
You can also visit your local IEC office and submit an Appendix 1B form for a voting station special vote.
Home visits
For home visits for those unable to travel to voting stations due to illness or disability, an Appendix 1A form can be submitted to your local IEC office. Someone else can hand-deliver the forms on your behalf.
Read More in Daily Maverick: SA’s 2024 elections must be strongly prepared for flurry of online influence and disinformation
How to protect against disinformation and misinformation
In July 2023, the IEC announced that it was working with social media giants such as Google, Meta and TikTok, in addition to Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), to fight disinformation in an effort to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process. The partnership aims to facilitate actions such as removing content, issuing advisory warnings and delisting offenders.
Daily Maverick journalists also attended a fact-checking exercise where Africa Check’s head of education and training Carina van Wyk, offered advice on how voters can protect themselves from falling prey to dis- and misinformation. It involves asking several questions when consuming information on social media and online.
Van Wyk’s elections misinformation tips:
- If it sounds too good, shocking or unlikely to be true, question it, pause and make sure you verify the information before you share it;
- If it triggers your emotions, if it makes you angry, or scared, or if it gives you hope, then pause, reflect and verify before you share it;
- If information is shared and looks like it’s going viral, look at credible news sources to verify the information;
- Ask yourself: who is the source of the information?
- With AI-generated images, look at the details such as fingers, ears, backgrounds and patterns, because artificial intelligence often doesn’t get all the details right.
You can also go the extra mile by verifying information on reputable sites, such as the IEC website or fact-checking website. The IEC and MMA also developed the Real411 platform where incidents of fake news, disinformation and misinformation can be reported. Another online tool, snopes.com can also be used to verify articles.
Always remember to check the text for grammatical and spelling errors, as these are often dead giveaways that the information you are consuming is not factual. DM
For information about voting and elections, see the IEC website.
why don’t we just kill social media. it really is a nuisance now, most of it is rubbish anyhow!
Which of these from these from this article is correct:
“The misleading message read: “Important for everyone over 60. Voting day is 29 May. If you want to avoid long queues and parking problems: The IEC has given permission for everyone over 60 to vote on the 27 and 28 at the polling station where you are registered. Just text (SMS) your ID no to 32249.
But the message is categorically untrue, and was not disseminated by the commission, the IEC confirmed on Monday.”
OR:
“You can apply for a special vote on the IEC’s website, or by SMSing your identity number to 32249 for voting station visits only.”
SMSing my ID to 32249 elicited an immediate SMS response telling me my special vote application is approved, what my name is and where I must vote on the 27th or 28th May.
In addition, when I check my special vote application status on the official IEC Portal I am told the same thing.
So Lerato Mutsila, as you sought to publish a clarifying article, please clarify exactly what is going on with SMS’s to 32249
“The application appears to work on an honour system that allows voters to cast their ballots two days before election day on 27 and 28 May.” I don’t send my ID number to anyone before checking, and it seems that “over 60” is not a valid qualification for a special vote. Pity, I am 70, but honorable.
I saw this message on our neighbourhood chat group yesterday and was immediately suspicious – so checked IEC website. No way will I send my ID number to anyone without verifying the facts! I think my former career in the banking sector taught me how easy it is for people to be scammed.
Indeed ……check your facts Lerato, my experience was similar to previous comment.
Poor reporting!
I had the same experience as Alastair’s. I cannot give the IEC official website on this reply (I was obliged to take it off) but have a look. It is very confusing. You have the option to send an sms and then you get approval — check your status., approved. Print it out, approved. So off you set on 27 or 28 with approved in your pocked. The IEC make no specific mention that this is only approval to get approval which seems to be the case resulting from all this brouhaha. There is no link to any form that needs to be completed or further steps to be taken. The IEC has not been specific regarding the over 60s requiring further application approval (after being approved) and the way that it is expressed certainly reads as though you will get approval on account of your age. It might have helped to say “eligible” rather than approved as that would suggest that more needed to be done.
I unfortunately can’t afford to pay for the service though I like to get news if someone can afford to pay for the service maybe though everything is so expensive these days I don’t think that people can afford to pay for news
I too SMS’ed my ID number to 32249, and within one minute received confirmation that I could vote before the announced election date, correctly identifying where I was registered to vote, and with the words “Application for Special Vote for NPE2024, NAT, REG and PROV BALLOT APPROVED for xxxx”.
Seems official to me.
aaaaand the Russian Roulette starts to play. Excuse the pun. 😉
Not yet
The fun bit is that it is possible that so many people take advantage of the hole in the system that the queues might be worse on the 27th and 28th than the 29th.
So if I got duped, how do I undo this?