The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) said it had reached 91% national completion of the 2026 local government election results at 17:00 on Friday, 6 November.
In all, 66,073 result slips are due from 23,696 voting stations. Of the country’s 213 municipalities, 150 now have final results, a tally that does not include the 44 district councils.
All municipalities in the Northern Cape had complete results. Completion by province was 98% in the Free State, 95% in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, 92% in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, 87% in North West, 86% in Limpopo and 75% in Gauteng.
Most of what is still missing comes from the big metropolitan municipalities, the IEC said. A dense population means more voting districts there, and the number of contestants made ballots and result slips longer.
The IEC said results “remain provisional until all objections and verification processes have been concluded”. It told parties, candidates, journalists and voters to use only results the commission has verified and put out itself.
Source: Electoral Commission of South Africa, statement of 6 November 2026, via SAnews. Chart: Rand Desk
The statement also answered two claims on social media. One held that Emalahleni’s Wards 4 and 23, in Mpumalanga, were having results withheld because ballots cast exceeded the number of registered voters. The IEC said: “This claim is false because the official voter turnout in the cited wards is just over 50%, well below the registered voter population.”
A second claim from the same source said a municipal official voted four times. The IEC called that misleading. Its account is that the voter turned up at the wrong voting district within her ward and was scanned there. She was then directed to the district where she is registered. The IEC said a second vote cannot happen in these elections, since ballots are accepted only at the voter’s own registered district.
Sharing false information can break the Electoral Code of Conduct and the Disinformation Code, the IEC said, and it asked citizens to verify claims before sharing them.
The Northern Cape and the Free State, at 100% and 98%, had all but finished. The Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga were each 5 percentage points short of full completion, and the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal 8 points short. Gauteng, at 75%, was the lowest, with Limpopo at 86% and North West at 87% next.
For earlier figures on the commission’s capturing of result slips, see our stories on the KwaZulu-Natal count and the national capturing progress. The figures above are the IEC’s count at 17:00 on Friday.
