Empowering South Africans Abroad to Vote
The DA Abroad is tirelessly campaigning to make overseas voting easier, fairer, and more accessible for every South African living or working around the world
Our Green Paper Submission: Key Overseas Voting Reforms
Our team’s efforts are aimed at making overseas voting accessible and fair, ensuring that all South Africans can exercise their right to vote regardless of where they live.
The DA Abroad’s Australian team has submitted a Green Paper “Locating Voting Stations Where South Africans Truly reside” to the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel (ERCP) in South Africa.
The submission focused on the following electoral reform priorities for South Africans living overseas:
Primary Reform – Location of Voting Stations: We advocated for changing the location of overseas voting stations to align with areas where large South African populations actually reside, rather than just where South African foreign missions are located. The current system has led to the exclusion of major locations, disenfranchising more than 150,000 South Africans abroad.
Timely Reform by 2026: We emphasised the importance of making these changes before the 2026 local elections. Delaying reforms until the 2029 election cycle could lead to repeated setbacks, with the government claiming that it's too late for implementation.
Voter Roll Address Capture: We highlighted the need for the overseas voters’ roll to capture accurate voter addresses to assist with appropriate allocation of voting stations, reflecting where South Africans abroad are based.
Equal Vote Value: Our team raised concerns about the current policy that counts overseas votes as half the value of domestic votes, since overseas voters do not receive a regional ballot. We advocated for an amendment to address this discrepancy.
The full Green Paper can be found here.
What is next?
The ERCP has compiled its findings into a report, presenting recommendations for potential reforms, which can be found here.
Where the report outlines certain suggestions for reforming the electoral system in order to properly account for districts, the DA Abroad will stand up for the rights of South Africans abroad to be included in such districts in order to vote for the full National Assembly, not just the compensatory seats.
In addition, we will ensure the issues of voting access to be on the agenda for the 2026 Electoral Amendment Bill. Should our recommendations not be included, we are ready to take court action to make voting abroad an easy and more seamless process.
Have your say.
Please refer to any correspondence on this submission to the DA Abroad Australia Chair, Manny Pohl on manny.pohl@da-abroad.org or the Global DA Abroad Leader, Ludre Stevens on ludre.stevens@da-abroad.org.