Are foreigners registering to vote ANC? The claim that has South Africans fuming

Four weeks before South Africa votes, one short clip has people asking a big question.

In it, a man described as a Pakistani national tells other foreigners to register and vote for the ANC. The account that shared it says he has an "unverified" South African ID.

That claim has not been checked by any newspaper or official body. Still, it hit a nerve. A post sharing it on 7 October passed 13,000 views in two days. The poster told his followers the ANC would now "rule over South Africa for ever and ever".

The replies were angry. One person wrote that "even the ANC is importing voters". Another said the long queues at Home Affairs suddenly made sense.

So what is really going on?

Can foreigners vote in South Africa?

No. Only citizens can.

Section 19 of the Constitution gives the vote to every adult citizen. Not residents. Not visitors. Not asylum seekers.

The Electoral Commission (IEC) said it again this week. On 7 October it told TimesLive that asylum seekers cannot vote in any election. Only citizens aged 18 or older whose names are on the voters' roll can vote.

The IEC spoke up because of another rumour. In July, the Constitutional Court told Home Affairs to reopen its asylum system. Some people read that as a door to citizenship. Home Affairs called those claims "categorically false" and said they were disinformation. The Border Management Authority added that the ruling does not make South Africa a "free-for-all".

Can permanent residents vote in South Africa?

No again. A permanent resident has the right to live and work here, but not to vote.

Permanent residents get a green ID book or a card too. That confuses people. But the IEC does not look at the card alone. It looks at what Home Affairs has on file for that ID number, and the citizenship field decides it.

Photo: Husskeyy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

How does the IEC check if a voter is a citizen?

Every new voter is checked against the national population register. Home Affairs runs that register.

The IEC and Home Affairs have a formal deal for this. When you register, the IEC sends your ID number to Home Affairs. If the record does not say "citizen", your name does not go on the roll. The IEC's chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo, has described this process in detail.

On voting day there is a second check. Staff scan your ID on a handheld device. It shows if you are on the roll at that station and if you have already voted. Then your thumb gets inked so you cannot vote twice.

The roll for this election closed on 7 August and was certified on 26 August. More than 29 million people are on it.

So where could a foreigner slip through?

This is what people are really worried about. The IEC checks the Home Affairs record. If the record itself is fake, the check passes.

So the weak spot is not the voting station. It is the office that issues the ID.

And Home Affairs has a fraud problem it does not deny. This year alone:

We covered the passport cases in detail in our look at why the South African passport keeps slipping.

Back in 2024, Home Affairs also warned that nearly 700,000 IDs could be cancelled. It had blocked them years earlier. Some were duplicates. Some belonged to people who had died. Some, it said, were held by people in the country illegally.

Photo: HelenOnline / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Is the ANC importing voters?

That is the claim doing the rounds, and plenty of people believe it.

There is no public evidence that the ANC as a party has asked foreigners to register. The clip shows one man making a call. Nobody has shown how many people, if any, answered it. The ANC has not responded to this clip. In June, after the registration weekend, it warned members against "misinformation and disinformation" about voter registration.

But the suspicion is easy to understand. The ANC lost its majority in 2024. Local seats in the big metros are on a knife edge. And South Africans have watched Home Affairs officials go to court for selling documents.

Put those together and you get a question people will not let go of. If papers can be bought, can votes follow?

What does the registration weekend tell us?

About 2.94 million people signed up or updated their details over the June registration weekend, the ANC said, quoting the national total.

That is a big number, and the total includes people who only updated their details.

No one has shown that a large share of new names belong to foreigners. If that were happening, it would show up as fake records at Home Affairs. That is where investigators have been looking.

Photo: KeMang?? / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

What can you do if you suspect voter fraud?

More than you might think. Start with your own registration. SMS your ID number to 32810 and make sure nobody has moved you to another ward.

If you know of a fake ID, report it to Home Affairs or the police. Officials have been arrested this year because of tips like that.

On the day, parties send agents to watch every voting station. If something looks wrong, tell the presiding officer.

Can't make it on 4 November? Special votes run on 2 and 3 November, and applications close on 12 October at 5pm.

Our full guide to the 2026 local elections has every date and the IDs you can bring.

Who decides this election?

The rule is clear. Only a citizen with a real Home Affairs record can make a mark on a ballot.

A clip cannot change that. A forged record could, and that is why the fight over fake IDs matters more than ever.

The people who keep it honest are the ones who check the roll, watch the stations and turn up. More than 29 million South Africans are on that roll. On 4 November, every one of them gets a vote that no clip can take away.