DOI: 10.14749/1539948820
title: South African Election Satisfaction Survey (ESS) 2014: Observers - All provinces

description: Description: 
 Topics covered in the questionnaire are: distance to the voting station, queuing time for voters, accessible to persons with disabilities and the elderly, signage and instructions at voting stations, voting procedures inside the voting station, trust in the electoral commission, evaluations of electoral officials, voting procedure for voters with special needs, effectiveness of the electoral commission's voter education campaign, usefulness of information sources, disturbances at voting stations, electoral freeness and fairness.

 The data set for dissemination contains 82 variables and 184 cases.

 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.
Abstract: 
 The objective of the 2014 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 2014 national and provincial elections.

 Three hundred voting stations throughout South Africa were selected using complex sample design. Realising that there were very few election Observers visiting many of the sampled voting stations, the fieldworkers were advised to interview as many election Observers as they could find. The study method comprised a brief (5-minute) face-to-face interview with the election Observers. 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 together with the IEC developed the observer questionnaire. Questions included

 
 Profile of the election Observers
 
 Type of voting station structure
 
 Facilities at the voting station
 
 Voting station signage
 
 Perceived ease of locating voting stations
 
 Voting station security
 
 Considerations of the voting stations and procedures for people with special needs
 
 Disturbances in and outside the voting station
 
 Display of party posters inside voting stations
 
 Political party activities and agents inside the voting station
 
 Perception of whether poll was free and fair
 
 IEC performance
 
 Media presence
description: Face-to-face interview
description: The study was conducted among election Observers in the 2014 Municipal Elections.
description: A complex sample design was used in drawing the sample of voting stations. The design included stratification and a multi-stage sampling procedure. The database of voting stations obtained from the IEC was merged with that of Population Census Enumeration Areas (EAs). 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 legible 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. Table 1 provides the distribution of voting stations per province and the number of voters interviewed.

 Realising that there were few election observers visiting many of the sampled voting stations, the fieldworkers were advised to interview as many election observers as they could find.

 
 
 
 Province
 
 Voting Stations Sampled
 
 
 
 Western Cape
 
 31
 
 
 
 Eastern Cape
 
 47
 
 
 
 Northern Cape
 
 20
 
 
 
 Free State
 
 26
 
 
 
 KwaZulu-Natal
 
 49
 
 
 
 North West
 
 28
 
 
 
 Gauteng
 
 39
 
 
 
 Mpumalanga
 
 24
 
 
 
 Limpopo
 
 36
 
 
 
 Total
 
 300