This orientation must guide the prioritisation of spending. Where there are no services, they must be provided. Where services have collapsed, they must be restored. Where services are found to be inadequate, they must be upgraded. Unplaced voters are those eligible voters who gave incomplete addresses on registration forms, making it impossible to place them in wards.
Most unplaced voters live in informal settlements where there is no address system.
At least one party, the Democratic Party, has objected to such voters, arguing this could lead to election gerrymandering with unplaced voters being bussed into wards. Reacting to the Revision Court hearing, Inkatha Freedom Party senator Ruth Rabinowitz said the concept of unplaced voters' made a mockery of registering eligible voters for the November 1 local government elections. This list included so-called unplaced voters who could be placed in areas such as Soweto's Meadowlands rather than allowing them to vote in anywhere in the Greater Johannesburg area. The IFP has repeatedly called for the list of 27000 unplaced voters to be made public so that attempts might be made by political parties to assist in the placing of these persons. Officials have been unwilling to release the list, claiming that they do not have time to print it and that it will be impossible to place the voters in specific areas.