The Independent Electoral Commission's (IEC's) Web site experienced a surge of hits during the weekend, which caused it to crash temporarily.
IEC CEO Pansy Tlakula says more than 180 000 people visited the commission's Web site before Friday afternoon last week, as South Africans rushed to register for next year's general elections.
A statement from the commission urged Internet users to be patient with the Web site as it was experiencing difficulties during the weekend. Tlakula says in the statement the Web site was receiving more than 46 000 hits at a time, while 101 000 visitors enquired whether they were registered and 37 000 enquired where to register to vote in next year's presidential elections.
The commission's SMS service was also inundated with registration queries at the weekend. More than 1 800 SMSes were received at one stage and more than 53 000 SMSes were answered in 24 hours.
The IEC was unable to say how long the Web site was down and how many visitors it had in total at the weekend.
Blogger rage
The IEC's Web site has drawn scathing reaction from the blogosphere. Various bloggers and online communities have slammed the site, which experienced the most traffic it has ever seen since being launched in 1998.
Netscape, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome users found they cannot access elections.org.za, as the Web site is only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer on the Windows operating system.
Earlier this month, the IEC announced it would spend R3 million, in the course of two months, to fix its Web site, following complaints from users that the site was not compatible with other Web browsers.
The IEC states the updated Web site will be launched well before the 2009 presidential elections, which take place in April.
Internet professional Damien du Toit says there have been complaints about the site's browser incompatibility since August.
Tlakula says this problem will only be sorted out in the next two months, leaving frustrated non-Microsoft users seething.
Various blogs complain about the “Digital Apartheid” the commission created by not making its Web site available to non-Microsoft Internet Explorer users. One blog featured a letter sent by several industry figures to the Human Rights Commission with regards to the exclusivity of the IEC's Web site.
The authors of the letter include State IT Agency CTO Daniel Mashao; the Shuttleworth Foundation's principal advisor, Helen King; and Aslam Raffee, chairman of government's open source software and open standards working group.
They lambasted the commission for not adhering to the minimum interoperability standards and the policy on free and open source software, implemented by the South African government, that was approved by Cabinet last year.
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