Imagine a voter waking up early, making tea, checking the news, and heading to a polling station. In South Africa, election day is more than a bureaucratic event; it is a ritual of democracy. For millions of citizens, placing a ballot in the box is an act of hope and trust. Yet behind that simple act lies a fragile web of confidence: trust in the political system, trust in the officials who count the ballots, and trust in the other side to accept the result. According to Kira Alberts, research coordinator at the Centre for Research on Democracy, it is this trust that disinformation is quietly destroying. Speaking to SABC News in the middle of local government elections, she highlighted a surprising finding from years of research: falsehoods rarely change which party a person votes for. They do not suddenly turn a supporter of one party into a supporter of another. Instead, disinformation operates at a more dangerous level. It affects whether people vote at all, and whether they accept the outcome once the results are announced. In other words, the enemy of democracy is not just a rival party. The deeper enemy is the creeping feeling that voting is meaningless, that the system is corrupt, and that the result cannot be trusted. That feeling is not born from rational debate; it is manufactured, distributed, and amplified. And once it takes root, it does not simply fade away. It stays in people’s minds, influencing how they see every future election.
Alberts pointed to a troubling trend in the current election cycle: the Electoral Commission of South Africa, known as the IEC, had become one of the main targets of disinformation. This is not accidental. If someone wants to undermine an election, they do not necessarily need to hack ballot boxes or steal votes. They only need to convince people that such things are happening. They need to plant suspicion in enough minds that every result can be dismissed as fraudulent. Alberts warned that this kind of disinformation aims to discredit the vote and discredit the institution. That is particularly dangerous because the IEC is the referee of the democratic process. When people stop trusting the referee, they stop accepting the rules of the game. If a political party loses, it can claim that the election was rigged. Supporters may take to the streets, not in celebration of democracy but in anger at what they believe was a stolen result. Alberts explained that this could lead to unrest after the election has taken place, as people will be less likely to accept the results and the credibility of the IEC. The mechanics of this are simple: disinformation does not have to convince everyone. It only needs to convince enough people to create chaos. Even a false accusation, once repeated and shared, can leave a stain on a fair process. The truth may eventually emerge, but by then the damage is already done.
The numbers show why this matters so deeply. Voter turnout in South Africa has been declining for years, and the trend is alarming. In 1994, the year of the country’s first democratic election, turnout was 86.87%. That was a historic moment, a nation bursting with hope and determination. But by the 2021 local government elections, turnout had fallen to 45.86%. That means more than half of registered voters stayed home. Many factors contribute to this decline: poverty, unemployment, disillusionment, a sense that politics has not delivered. But Alberts believes that disinformation is a growing part of the problem, and it is not something to take lightly. When people are constantly told that elections are rigged, that their vote will not count, that politicians are all the same, and that the system is corrupt, it starts to feel pointless to stand in long queues. Why bother, if the result is already fixed? Why participate, if the process is fraudulent? These narratives are not just abstract ideas. They are repeated in social media posts, in forwarded messages, in memes, in videos that look real but are not. Gradually, they wear down the willingness of ordinary people to engage. Each person who stays home is not just a statistic. They are someone who has lost faith in their own power. And when enough people lose that faith, the democratic system becomes weaker, less representative, and more vulnerable to abuse.
Alberts is careful, however, not to condemn all political conflict. She says that robust and even harsh campaigning by political parties on social media is good, and demonstrates what democracy is about. Democracy should be noisy and competitive. Parties should argue, challenge, criticise, and fight for votes. Passionate disagreement is healthy. The problem starts, she explains, when communication shifts from persuasion to deliberate manipulation. There is a fine line between saying “our opponent is wrong” and “our opponent is evil.” There is a fine line between highlighting a real problem and inventing a problem that does not exist. There is a fine line between using a powerful image and faking one. Alberts described the shift clearly: manipulation relies on misleading narratives, manipulated images, fabricated claims, and coordinated networks of accounts that try to manufacture the appearance of public support or opposition that does not really exist. This is not honest political speech. It is weaponised communication. It uses the tools of connection and community to spread confusion and distrust. When a campaign becomes a coordinated effort to deceive, it stops being a campaign at all. It becomes an attack on the ability of citizens to make informed choices. And that attack is difficult to fight, because it is designed to look like ordinary debate. It hides behind humour, outrage, and shared identity. It feels like something you can trust, even when it is built on lies.
Why is disinformation so effective? Partly because people do not have the time or the tools to verify what they see. Alberts cited figures that are hard to read: only about 50% of South African voters are confident they can tell the difference between real news and fake news. Even more troubling, only 18% of internet or social media users say they verify information they encounter online. That means the vast majority of people scroll past a story, an image, or a video, and accept it without checking. Alberts does not blame them. Fact-checking takes effort. It means opening a new tab, typing in a search, reading multiple sources, and thinking carefully about who created an image and why. Many people are tired, busy, and overwhelmed. They scroll quickly, react emotionally, and share what they see without pausing. And the platforms that carry this content are not neutral. Their algorithms reward information that is divisive, sensational, and outrageous. They show users more of what gets attention, and lies often get more attention than the truth. A calm, accurate explanation of election procedure gets few clicks. A shocking, fabricated video of a ballot box being thrown away goes viral. This is not an accident. It is the design of the digital world. So the fight against disinformation cannot be won only by telling individuals to be more careful. It also requires platforms to take responsibility, and political parties to stop using manipulation as a strategy.
At the time of Alberts’ interview, voting was continuing smoothly in different parts of South Africa, and polls were expected to remain open until 21h00. That is good news. But the real test comes after the last ballot is cast and the first result is announced. Elections are not just about the mechanics of voting. They are also about the stories we tell ourselves and each other. When people trust an election, they accept the result even if their side loses. They plan for the next election. They continue to participate. When people do not trust an election, they reject the result and turn to other means. Disinformation can poison that moment of transition. It can make victory feel fragile because the winners know the losers will not accept it. It can make defeat feel unbearable because the losers believe the process was rigged. To protect democracy, citizens need to do more than cast their vote. They need to think critically about what they share, resist emotionally manipulative content, and demand transparency from platforms and political leaders. Political parties, too, must understand that harsh criticism is part of democracy, but deliberate lies are not. The fine line that Alberts describes is the same line that separates a vibrant democracy from a fractured one. South Africans have shown, time and again, a deep commitment to the idea of free and fair elections. Keeping that commitment alive means recognising that disinformation is not just a nuisance. It is a form of attack on the democratic contract. The voting queue may be long, and the ballots may be counted, but the final victory belongs to those who refuse to let lies destroy the truth.