Elections are among the most human things a society does. They are noisy, imperfect, emotional, and deeply trusting—trusting that the person in the next booth will accept the outcome, trusting that the count will be honest, and trusting that the information we carry into the polling place is not poisoned. In South Africa, that trust is being tested. The Real411 platform, the country’s official channel for citizens to report misinformation and disinformation around the polls, has already received at least 34 complaints linked to this election period. Those complaints are not merely about misleading campaign slogans or exaggerated promises. They are about incitement to commit violence, hate speech, and harassment—the ugly, dangerous edges of false narrative. Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo has spoken publicly about these numbers, and while thirty-four might appear modest relative to the scale of a national election, the impact can be outsized. Each complaint is a story of someone who encountered content that frightened them, enraged them, or made them believe their neighbours could be their enemies. The people behind these complaints are not abstract. They are voters, election workers, candidates, and ordinary citizens who found themselves in the crosshairs of a firehose of lies. They have been singled out, harassed, or threatened because a piece of video was stripped of context, or a rumour was repeated until it felt true. The damage is not only personal. It is communal and institutional. Every bout of unchecked misinformation frays the fabric of democracy a little more, making it harder for people to accept results, harder for them to trust institutions, and harder for them to see each other as fellow citizens rather than opponents. In a country with a painful history of division, the cost of such manipulation is higher than in many other places. The last thing South Africa needs is for the electoral process to be transformed into a battlefield of lies. The 34 complaints are therefore not a statistic to be shrugged off. They are a warning signal—an early crack in the wall that, if left unattended, could widen. They remind us that the greatest risk to an election is not always at the ballot box itself, but in the unseen network of messages, captions, and clicks that shape what voters believe before they even arrive. And because the real-world consequences can be as severe as any ballot fraud, the response must begin with understanding that the problem is not only technical, but profoundly human.
If there is a single battlefield for this misinformation, it is X—the platform formerly known as Twitter. According to Mamabolo, no other social media space has carried as much harmful and false content in this election cycle. This may not surprise anyone who spends time there. X is a place where urgency is baked into the interface; a quick retweet takes less thought than a pause. Its algorithms reward outrage, surprise, and anxiety. A claim that sparks fear is more likely to travel than a patient explanation. This is not a failure of the citizens who use the platform. It is simply how the architecture works, and it is exploited by people who know how to craft content for maximum spread. A person scrolling through X on a Sunday evening might see a video clip of electoral officers moving boxes, accompanied by a caption that suggests fraud. They do not know the poster. They have no way to verify the scene. But the clip triggers a feeling—the fear that their vote will not count, the anger that “they” are stealing the election—and so they repost it. In doing so, they become part of the machinery, not because they intended to spread lies, but because the human impulse to warn and share was manipulated. Mamabolo’s observation should prompt reflection on the role of algorithms, weak moderation, and the sheer speed at which falsehoods travel. The health and safety of public conversation is not an abstract concern; if X can be used to incite violence in one country, it can happen anywhere. The concentration on one platform is also worrying because it creates a sense of consensus: when a false claim appears repeatedly on an open, visible space, it starts to look credible. The same video shows up in multiple accounts, all phrased differently, as if independent. A voter who sees these posts might conclude that where there is smoke, there is fire. But often there is no fire at all—only a well-organised arsonist. Mamabolo’s remark is an invitation to be more careful, not only on X but across the entire ecosystem. Yet it is worth saying: not everyone spreading these falsehoods is a villain. Some are simply tired, worried, and looking for explanations. The challenge is to create a culture where asking a question is more valued than repeating an accusation; a culture where a person feels comfortable saying, “I don’t know if this is true, so I will not share it.”
Among the most insidious stories circulating are claims that votes are being rigged. The evidence? Videos of electoral officers who have returned from collecting special votes at people’s homes, transferring the sealed envelopes from their custody into ballot boxes at polling stations. At first glance, to a viewer primed by suspicion, this can look like tampering. But in reality it is a standard and transparent part of the electoral process. Special votes are designed for citizens who cannot physically travel to a polling station—the elderly, the ill, the disabled, and others with reasonable justification. Electoral officers go to their homes, witness the vote being cast, and place the completed ballot in a sealed envelope. They then bring those envelopes back to the station. Before counting, each envelope must be introduced into the ballot box, just as ordinary ballots are inserted during voting. This is not a secret. It is written in procedure. But in an almost perfect example of how misinformation works, the context is stripped away. A viewer sees only a short clip: officials moving envelopes into boxes. Overlaid text or a caption implies betrayal. The video is shared, reshared, and soon it is being presented as proof of a conspiracy. Mamabolo has specifically called out political parties for creating and amplifying these false narratives. That is a serious accusation, because parties know the process. They have observer training. They know that transferring special-vote envelopes into the box is not a crime. But for some, a frightened voter is more useful than an informed one. Fear drives engagement. Fear drives a sense that the election is already lost. And fear can be weaponised. This distortion is cynical because it exploits democratic values. It tells voters to distrust the very machinery that exists to let their voices be heard. It turns the patient, boring work of electoral administration into a shadowy conspiracy. And when political parties, who ought to be guardians of the process, become narrators of these myths, the ordinary voter is left with little to hold onto.
When a timeline is filled with tales of rigging, someone has to be the villain. In these narratives, the villains are often ordinary people: electoral officers, polling station volunteers, municipal staff, even the grandmother who cast a special vote from her bed. Once a viral video labels these individuals as fraudsters, they become targets. They face harassment, threats, and in some cases real danger. Hate speech and incitement are not rhetorical flourishes in this context—they can translate into mobs at a polling station, physical attacks, or a campaign of online abuse that destroys a person’s reputation overnight. The 34 complaints logged on Real411 reflect this shadow. They include people who have been directly threatened because their face was captured in a video taken out of context. They include voters who have been harassed by strangers for belonging to a certain political community. They include content that calls for violence against rivals, all of it dressed in the language of patriotism or self-defence. This is the human cost of disinformation. It is not just about “bad information”; it is about a climate of fear in which election workers worry for their safety, and citizens hesitate to participate. Democracy relies on participation. If a voter becomes too frightened to queue, and a worker becomes too frightened to serve, the system begins to fail. The rumours about rigging are especially destructive because they undermine the very concept of a shared, legitimate outcome. A voter who believes the results are fraudulent will not accept the outcome. When both sides believe the other is cheating, the electoral process becomes a collective fantasy in which no evidence is enough, and every official is an enemy. The damage persists long after the ballots are counted, poisoning public life and making the next election even more fragile.
Faced with these threats, Mamabolo and the Electoral Commission have not remained silent. The response is twofold. First, the use of established reporting systems. Real411 exists precisely for this purpose—to give citizens a reliable avenue to flag false content, evidence of incitement, and online harm. It is not enough simply to scroll past or to argue with strangers in the comment section. Reporting to a proper channel allows the commission and its partners to monitor trends, identify repeat offenders, and, where necessary, involve law enforcement. Mamabolo’s advice may appear bureaucratic, but it is essential. A single incident lost in the noise of the timeline is powerless; the same incident, reported consistently, becomes a trail that can be followed. The second part of the response is internal accountability. Mamabolo acknowledged that some electoral officials have fallen short in executing their duties, and the commission has acted swiftly in those cases. This is a crucial point. Admitting that not all conduct was perfect is not an invitation to cynicism; it is a proof of transparency. Any human institution will have lapses. The measure of democracy is how it responds. By disciplining those who failed, the commission is showing that it is watching itself as well as the public. And that is exactly what a voter needs to see. There are always tools of correction—recounts, objections, legal review. The path of integrity is not to deny mistakes, but to own them, correct them, and ensure the final result is a true reflection of the will of the people. Mamabolo’s call is to focus on these mechanisms rather than on the hysteria of the timeline. That does not mean concerns should be suppressed. It means they should be channelled into systems that can actually do something about them, rather than into rumour mills that only deepen the fog.
Ultimately, the story of the 34 complaints is not only about the dark side of human nature. It is about the resilience of ordinary people who are refusing to accept a world in which lies are normal. Every time a citizen pauses before sharing a video, every time someone double-checks the source, every time a person reports a hateful post to Real411, they are building a firewall against chaos. The internet has given us many things, but it has also made each of us a publisher. That power comes with responsibility. We may not be able to stop political parties from manufacturing narratives, or malicious actors from spreading fear. But we can choose what we amplify. We can choose to be the person who asks: “Do I know this is true? Is this the full picture? Who benefits if I believe this?” These questions are cheap, but their absence is expensive. South Africa has too much history of division and violence to allow the simple act of voting to be poisoned by lies. The 34 complaints are a small number, but they are also a reminder that vigilance cannot be switched off. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It is made and remade every day in the choices we make as readers, listeners, sharers, and citizens. The ballots are counted, but the battle for belief is ongoing. Let us support the Real411 platform, support the principles of factual reporting, and support one another in the hard work of discerning truth. In doing so, we are not just protecting an election. We are protecting the future of a country that has already overcome so much—and that deserves better than to be defeated by a lie.