South Africa’s election result website crashes

The results dashboard of South Africa’s Electoral Commission (IEC) crashed on Friday morning.

It was reported that the live results dashboard on the IEC’s website was displaying all results and the number of votes counted as zero.

The glitch affected the IEC’s provisional results centres, website, and mobile app.

The IEC found the problem to be an issue with the beaming system.

The IEC, which confirmed the setback, wrote on X: “We apologise for the issue with our public-facing NPE system and are working on restoring service. The results system is still operational and local offices continue to capture results.”

The electoral body later announced that the results dashboard was back online.

In a separate incident, the IEC confirmed the loss of a ballot box in KwaZulu-Natal during transportation.

IEC General Manager Granville Abrahams reported that the ballot box was lost in uMhlathuze while being transported in an open vehicle.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), is on course to lose its majority in parliament for the first time since it came to power 30 years ago, following results from Wednesday’s parliamentary election.

With results from 57% of voting districts counted so far, the ANC is leading with 42%, followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA) with 23%.

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) of former President Jacob Zuma has garnered 11% of the vote and the Economic Freedom Fighters party, nearly 10%.

Final results are expected over the weekend.