IEC launches election app

Tomorrow, South Africans will be heading to voting stations around the country to cast their votes, and to make this a little easier, the IEC has launched an app for Windows Phone.

The IEC South Africa app, is available in the Windows Store and Windows Phone Store, which displays user’s voter registration status and other details at their fingertips.

The app was developed by the Microsoft South Africa AppFactory internship programme in partnership with the IEC. The Factory enables local young developers to gain invaluable work experience by turning their ideas into clever and useful apps for Windows and Windows Phone users. It is most definitely one of the handier and locally relevant ‚Äòfruit’ to come out of this initiative,” says Clifford de Wit, development platform lead at Microsoft South Africa.

The IEC South Africa application enables users to view their registration details including crucial info they will need on voting day, such as the address of the voting station where they are registered to make their mark.

Users are able to search for the nearest voting station or view the particular one where they have been registered. They are then able to tap on a particular voting station to see it on a map and get the driving directions to the venue from their current location. In addition, the app allows users to keep up-to-date with the latest election news.

Billy van Graan, the developer behind the IEC South Africa app, said that phase 1 of the development of this application took around a month to complete. Phase 2 involved another week’s worth of development work and involved an update that enables the app to display the election results as and when these are made available by the IEC.

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