For the first time in South African history, the the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has introduced the third ballot paper.

Previously South Africans were using two ballot papers which consisted of a nationaland the provincial ballot papers. The reason behind this change is the Electoral Amendment Act that was passed in April 2023. The Act gave a green light for independent candidates to contest elections as independent candidates. This became the law in June 2023. The newly introduced third ballot is the independent candidates ballot paper called regional ballot. Breaking down the three ballot papers, IEC CEO Sy Mamabolo urged voters to carefully review and mark each of these three ballot papers before depositing them into the ballot box. "Our appeal to voters is to remember that they can only put one mark on each ballot, more than one mark will result in a spoiled vote and not counted. This amendment revised the electoral system to allow independent candidates to contest in the regional (province-to-national) tier of the National Assembly and the Provincial Legislatures. Mamabolo said that the national ballot will consist of a list of political parties who will be battling it out for the 200 seats in the National Assembly. "This ballot will be used to vote for political parties. There are currently 52 parties which will be on this ballot and the configuration will be a dual column," he said.

Mamabolo said that the regional or province-to-national Ballots will have political parties and independents candidates contesting for the seats reserved for each province in the National Assembly. "Voters will use this ballot to elect a political party or an independent candidate to represent them in the National Assembly. The number of contestants range from 30 to 44 on regional ballots. The configuration of this ballot is a single column," he said. Mamabolo further said that the provincial ballots will form the above-mentioned ballots. "The ballot is unique to each province and includes parties and independent candidates competing for seats in each respective provincial legislature. This ballot will allow voters to choose either a political party or an independent candidate to represent them in provincial legislatures. The number of contestants range from 24 to 45 on the provincial legislature ballots," he said.