The new version of the SA Electoral Act says:

S 116 (1) A person must not, during an election period, publish material consisting of, or containing a commentary on, any candidate or political party, or the issues being submitted to electors, in written form, in a journal published in electronic form on the Internet or by radio or television or broadcast on the Internet, unless the material or the programme in which the material is presented contains a statement of the name and address (not being a post office box) of a person who takes responsibility for the publication of the material.

unless

S 2 (c):

(i) the name and address (not being a post office box) of a person who

takes responsibility for the publication of the material is provided to

the publisher of the journal and retained by the publisher for a period

of 6 months after the end of the election period; and

(ii) the journal contains a statement of the name and postcode of the person who takes responsibility for the publication of the material

You can check this for yourself – you can download a copy of the new version of the SA Electoral Act from here.

Get that? If you want to comment on the election during the “election period” (that is, after the writs are issued to call the election), you have to give me your name and address and I have to keep it for six months. What a load of rubbish. This blog will allow free, anonymous comments and will require no personal information at all.