Young South Africans see election day as just another day

For millions of young South Africans, election day has quietly become a day like any other. They register in smaller numbers than their parents. They trust the institutions running the vote less. And many have concluded that casting a ballot changes nothing in their daily lives. As parties fan out across the country ahead of the local government elections on 4 November, the largest bloc of eligible voters may be the one no party can campaign for: the No Vote party.

The numbers behind that quiet withdrawal are stark. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) recently announced that its registration drives have pushed the voters’ roll above 29 million people, up from the 26.8 million registered before the 2024 elections. Yet that figure represents only an estimated 63.7% of the eligible voter population, and turnout on voting day has been falling steadily for years. Participation among registered voters has declined from a high of 89.3% in 1999 to an all-time low of 58.6% in 2024. Once eligible citizens who never register are counted, the No Vote party dominates.

Professor Bruce Bartlett, an associate professor in the Mathematics Division at Stellenbosch University, has tried to measure how deep the disengagement runs. Using Stats SA census and mid-year population data, he calculated that the voter-eligible population (VEP) stood between 37.3 million and 40 million people at the 2024 elections. In real terms, only about 42% of that pool actually turned up at the polls. His earlier calculations showed 49% voting in 2019 and 57% in 2014, a consistent slide across three national votes.

When Bartlett compared South Africa with international peers including Brazil, France, India, the US and the UK, the country sat at the bottom. Brazil recorded the highest turnout at 73% in its 2024 election, followed by France at 68% in 2022 and the US at 67% in 2020. “The results suggest that, when measured either as a percentage of the voting-eligible population or as a percentage of the voting-age population, South Africa’s voter turnout has been worryingly low by international standards,” he wrote in 2019. Looking ahead to November, he told Daily Maverick that municipal elections always draw lower turnout than national ones, “so turnout will likely be extremely low”.

The disengagement is sharpest among the young. IEC data estimated that in 2024, just 27% of people aged 18 to 19 and 49% of those aged 20 to 29 were registered, compared with about 80% or more among those aged 40 and older. Young people aged 16 to 29 account for 26% of registered voters this year. Meanwhile, polling by market research company Ipsos points to frustration and distrust as the driving forces: 47% of respondents felt no political party represented their views, 38% had no interest in politics or elections, and 40% of youth aged 18 to 34 said they did not trust the IEC itself.

“Many say that voting makes no difference… The situation does not change at all,” said Ipsos South Africa director and political analyst Mari Harris. “People say politicians only promise things and deliver nothing of their promises. They complain that, as a ‘normal’ person, you only ever hear from politicians when it is election time. They disappear soon afterwards. People also say that politicians only care about their friends and family and organise work and other opportunities for them. These feelings are prevalent, even if people are going to vote on 4 November.”

Political scientists see structural causes behind the frustration. Dr Naledi Modise, a lecturer in political studies and international relations at North West University, found in her doctoral thesis that one-party dominance, embodied by decades of ANC rule, has weakened accountability and fed voter dissatisfaction. “In South Africa, the dominance of a single party has shaped voter perceptions and contributed to declining engagement in the electoral process,” she said. Falling turnout, she argued, may reflect growing distrust in democratic institutions: “When voters question whether their participation matters, turnout is likely to decline regardless of the opportunities available within the electoral system.”

The Human Sciences Research Council documented the erosion of belief in the ballot itself. A July 2026 study found the share of young people who believed voting made a difference had fallen sharply, from a peak of 58% among Born Free millennials in 2003/2008 to just 27% in 2024/2025. Among Gen Z, the decline was less steep but still marked, from 35% in 2014/2018 to 23% in 2024/2025.

Mbali Ntuli, founder and chief executive officer of civic education non-profit Ground Work Collective, told Daily Maverick that the withdrawal cuts across generations. Older voters who stopped voting are less visible in the data because they remain on the voters’ roll from previous elections. She links the decline to a lack of civic education, record-high unemployment, poor service delivery and a stagnant economy. “In general, South Africans across the board, whether young or old, are having a decline in their confidence in democracy as a concept because they can’t tie up what us having a political choice and voice has meant in terms of the economic trajectory, which is for any country always the big thing,” she said.

Disengagement from voting, Ntuli cautioned, does not mean disengagement from politics. Many young people are channelling their energy into volunteering and ward committees instead. “We have seen that most millennials and Gen Zs don’t think that democracy is the only way that they can make a difference in their country. The problem is they don’t really know what else there is aside from either abstaining or getting involved in other ways,” she said. “It makes a better case for why we need to be doing more work to show them that democracy is a contact sport and everyone has to get involved.”

Whether that message can reach them before 4 November, when turnout is expected to hit new lows, remains the open question hanging over this election.