Description:
Topics covered in the questionnaire are: the distance traveled to the voting station, means of transport utilised, time spent in the voting queue, perception of IEC officials' competence, and perception of the freeness and fairness of the election.
In terms of the number of voting stations, a 100% realisation rate was achieved. All 300 selected voting stations were therefore visited on Election Day. The number of voters interviewed was 13,584 from the expected 15,000 which represented 90% response rate.
The data set for dissemination contains 80 variables and 13 584 cases
Abstract:
The objective of the 2016 Election Satisfaction Survey (ESS) was to determine opinions and perceptions of voters on Election Day. The main intention of the survey was to determine if elections were free and fair. A further aim of the study was to assess the operational efficiency of the Electoral Commission in managing the 2016 municipal elections.
Three hundred voting stations throughout South Africa were selected using complex sample design. Around 50 randomly selected voters were interviewed at each of the 300 voting stations. The prime target population was therefore individuals aged 18+ who reside in South Africa and who were registered to vote in the 2016 Municipal Elections and voted. As voters exited these voting stations they were interviewed. The study method comprised a brief (5-minute) face-to-face interview. Since the Electoral Commission was keen to release the survey results together with the official election results (which took place 3 days after the election) the HSRC deemed electronic data collection as most appropriate for this project.
The HSRC together with the IEC developed the voter questionnaire. Questions included the distance traveled to the voting station, means of transport utilised, time spent in the voting queue, perception of IEC officials' competence, and perception of the freeness and fairness of the election.
Face-to-face interview
National Population: Adult (aged 18 years and older who were registered to vote in the 2016 municipal elections).
The database of voting stations obtained from the Electoral Commission (IEC) was merged with that of Population Census. A complex sample design was used in drawing the sample of voting stations from merged frame. The design included stratification and a multi-stage sampling procedure. The sampling of the voting station was done proportionally to the dominant race type, geo-type and the number of voting stations in a given province. This was to ensure that a nationally representative sample of voting stations was selected and the results of the survey could be properly weighted to the population of eligible voters in the country. At the actual voting stations, fieldworkers used random sampling to select voters to ensure a fair representation in terms of gender, race, age, and disability status.
In the cases of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the numbers of voting stations were sampled below proportion - given that almost half of the South African registered voters are based in these provinces. Conversely, the number of voting stations in the Northern Cape was over-sampled in order to generate sufficient interviews in that province to facilitate meaningful analysis.
The distribution of sampled voting stations per province and the number of expected voters interviewed are provided in table below
At each voting station, the interviewer was instructed to interview 50 voters during the course of the day. Interviews were divided into four time slots: 07:00 - 10:30; 10:31 - 14:00; 14:01 - 17:30 and the remainder between 17:31 and closing time (21:00). This was done to ensure a spread of interviews throughout Election Day, since it was imagined that different dynamics might be at play depending on the time of day.
Province
Voting Station Sampled
Expected sample
Western Cape
31
1,550
Eastern Cape
47
2,350
Northern Cape
20
1,000
Free State
26
1,300
KwaZulu-Natal
49
2,450
North West
28
1,400
Gauteng
39
1,950
Mpumalanga
24
1,200
Limpopo
36
1,800
Total
300
15,000
