The Electoral Commission of South Africa has approved a record 2,655,067 special vote applications for the local government elections on 4 November 2026, up 131% from 1,147,759 in 2021.
Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo announced the figure in Pretoria on 14 October. Special voting takes place on 2 and 3 November, two days before election day.
The numbers
Applications were open from 21 September to 12 October. Of the total, 678,525 were approved for home visits, up 33.7% from 2021, according to the commission. The rest are for special votes cast at voting stations.
Mamabolo said most applications, 2,426,066, were submitted online. He said home visits "are predominantly utilised by older voters, particularly older female voters". Women made up 74% of home-visit applicants and 64% of voting-station applicants, and voters aged 60 and older made up 79.6% of home-visit applicants, the commission said.
Key dates
- 2 and 3 November 2026: special voting.
- 4 November 2026: election day.
The commission said more than 66% of the roughly 79 million ballot papers had been printed at the time of its statement, with production expected to finish by Sunday 18 October. We have not confirmed that printing was completed.
The commission's statement did not give the total number of registered voters, and this article does not either.
Who is on the ballot
The commission says 136,790 candidates met the requirements to contest, which it calls unprecedented. In 2021 there were 95,427. Of the 2026 total, 98,219 are party-nominated ward candidates, 38,571 are party list candidates and 621 are independent ward candidates. A further 5,096 candidates were disqualified after statutory reviews.
There are 10,526 seats up for election, up from 10,478 in 2021, across 8 metropolitan, 44 district and 205 local municipalities.
