Voters keen to log onto www.elections.org.za this morning to see how each political party is faring in yesterday's national and provincial elections were greeted with a "service unavailable" message.
This comes as the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) starts issuing voting results after polls closed at 9pm last night. The site was, just after 8am this morning, displaying the message: "The service is unavailable."
IEC officials could not immediately be reached to comment on the cause of the disruption, nor when the issues would be resolved. The IEC's app - which has been downloaded more than 1 000 times on Google's Play store - was loading data this morning.
Meanwhile, the elections caused quite a social media stir during the course of yesterday, with related hash tags trending on Twitter. This morning, tags such as #celebratefreedom, #ElectionDay, #VoteSA, #ThumbsUp, VF Plus, and UDM 2 were among the local trending topics.
Globally, the tag #celebratefreedom was the top trending topic on the popular micro-blogging site this morning. Several of these tweets included thoughts about yesterday's process, along with initial results.
Shifting patterns
Fuseware MD Mike Wronski noted just after lunch yesterday that Twitter was "abuzz with elections and political party conversation across the board".
The African National Congress had the most share of voice, with 6 630 mentions posted online on Twitter yesterday. Trailing closely behind, the Democratic Alliance had 4 016, the Economic Freedom Fighters had 2 190, while Agang scored 519 mentions during the course of yesterday morning and early afternoon, notes Wronksi.
Those conversations "consist largely of dedicated party supporters voicing their opinions and urging their communities to vote," says Wronski. He added IECSouthAfrica was generating the most retweets among elections-related conversations - mostly through giving news and information to voters.
"This shows how many South Africans have changed their information consumption habits because of social media."
Most well-known political parties have been taking advantage of the increased shift to social media, and this year's elections are set to be a social media dress rehearsal for 2019, when political parties' first point of attack will be through the Internet.
The African National Congress, Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front+ and several other parties were targeting voters through Mxit, Facebook, and Twitter for several months before polling yesterday.
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