South Africa says 78 million ballots are being printed for local elections
An October 4 briefing said 78 million ballots were being printed for the November 4 elections, with 142,072 nominees for 10,526 council seats.
Event / data period: 2026-10-02
Published: · Updated:
South Africa’s inter-ministerial committee on local elections reviewed readiness reports on October 2. According to SAnews, the Electoral Commission was printing 78 million ballot papers for the November 4 vote; the nomination period ended August 28 with 142,072 candidates for 10,526 council seats.
The committee said eight election-related court cases remained pending and could affect final ballots in the areas concerned. The report lists candidate subcategories whose counts do not add to the stated overall total, so no distribution is reconstructed. The IEC’s 100% turnout reference is a planning target, not a forecast or realized turnout.
Data
Key counts in the election-readiness report
Ballot, candidate and seat counts stated in the committee’s October 4 briefing.
- Ballot papers reported in printing
- 78,000,000 count
- 2026-10-04 · Observed
- Total nominees
- 142,072 count
- 2026-08-28 · Observed
- Municipal council seats
- 10,526 count
- 2026-11-04 · Observed
- Pending election cases
- 8 count
- 2026-10-04 · Observed
Methodology
Candidate subcategory counts do not reconcile with the stated total; only the overall count is reported. The 100% turnout reference is a planning target, not a forecast.
Updated:
Subjects and places
Subject proposals
- Politics and governmentSuggested
- Preserved editorial category/topic; broad candidate onlywww.sanews.gov.za ↗
Geographic references
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- South Africa · Place role: Coverage · Place type: Country or area · Location precision: RegionalEvidence
- Explicit preserved editorial country/region; no city or national centroid inferredwww.sanews.gov.za ↗