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Summary:    Electoral Commission Act 51 of 1996 – Section 5(1)(b) confirms the Electoral Commission’s constitutional mandate to ensure that elections are free and fair – Electoral Commission required to have electoral systems in place, which guarantee accurate election results, as declared by it – it must ensure that the elections results represent the will of the electorate – applicant (MKP) contends that National and Provincial Elections held during May 2024 (2024 NPE) were not free and fair – and that the Electoral Commission in declaring same to have been free and fair, failed in its duties – MKP therefore applied initially for an order declaring that the 2024 NPE were not free and fair as required by section 19(2) of the Constitution, read together with the provisions of the Electoral Act 73 of 1998 – MKP’s case was that the Electoral Commission deliberately interfered with the functioning of the digital votes capturing and reporting system (system) – this resulted in the system malfunctioning for two hours, which, according to MKP, interfered with the election results to the prejudice of a free and fair election – Electoral Commission denies MKP’s claim – there was no system ‘crash’, ‘system downtime’ or ‘blackout’, as the MKP maintains – Factual dispute – did the digital votes capturing and reporting system malfunction on 31 May 2024 such that it resulted in the capturing, counting and the reporting of the votes from the 2024 NPE being wholly inaccurate and skewed – dispute decided in favour of the Electoral Commission – Application dismissed – no order as to costs.