Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Democratic Alliance (DA) attracted a younger crowd of voters‚ while the African National Congress (ANC) was more popular with women.

This is according to Prof Peter Alexander, South African Research Chair in Social Change and Director of the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

UJ researchers conducted a survey on voters as they exited from voting stations having cast their ballot in the recent local government elections.

The report, entitled Local Government Elections 2016: Some Preliminary Findings from an Exit Survey of Voters, was compiled using research “undertaken at 21 voting stations in Gauteng, North West, Mpumalanga and Free State, most of them located in working-class neighbourhoods.”

Some of the findings from the research include that:

• EFF and DA voters tended to be younger than those supporting the ANC;
• the ANC was more popular among female than male voters, the converse was true among EFF voters and that DA voters were fairly evenly divided;
• the ANC did well among voters living in RDP houses and among recipients of social grants, and the EFF did well among voters living in shacks; and
• 68% of those surveyed voted for the same party as in 2014 and 14% voted for a different party. Of those who had changed party, most moved from the ANC to the EFF;

Prof Alxander said a comparison with Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) data shows that the findings were broadly representative of the voters in the surveyed areas.