Electoral Commission says 167 714 spoilt ballots recorded at 7 AM

Leading the way with the highest number of spoilt ballots this morning was KwaZulu-Natal with 69 619, followed by the Eastern Cape and Gauteng with 53 725 and 41 057, respectively.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has overnight recorded a slight increase in the number of spoilt ballots recorded during Wednesday's 2019 National and Provincial Elections.

At 7 am this morning, the IEC said of the 12.1 million cast votes counted at that time, 167 714 had been spoiled. This was a 0.02% increase from the previous night's 120 172 figure.

The picture emerged this morning as voting counting results continued to stream in on Day Two of the counting process, which crossed the 75% mark at 7 am.

During the 2014 National and Provincial Elections, 234 000 spoilt ballots were recorded.

Leading the way with the highest number of spoilt ballots this morning was KwaZulu-Natal with 69 619, followed by the Eastern Cape and Gauteng with 53 725 and 41 057, respectively.

Coming in fourth was the Western Cape with 35 277, followed by the North West with 31 847. Mpumalanga, at the time of publication, had recorded 31 744. Limpopo, Free State and Northern Cape recorded 22 191, 15 450 and 11 057, respectively.

According to the IEC, a spoilt or invalid vote is accounted for in the reconciliation of ballot papers in each voting station but has no bearing on votes.

(With Inputs from South African Government Press Release)