As a high-quality and dependable printing company in South Africa, we at Lebone Litho Printers pride ourselves on being able to deliver printing services to a wide range of clients across multiple sectors. This includes a broad range of private clients, as well as clients within the public sector.
One of the ways that we contribute to the upholding of democracy within both South Africa and the broader Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is by printing materials that are critical for the smooth running of elections. This includes things like election posters, flyers, and brochures, as well as the ballots themselves.
The countries within the SADC region that we have provided these kinds of printing services to include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Angola, South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Malawiand.
While printing marketing materials for political campaigns is straightforward enough, printing ballot papers is a highly sensitive and complex process. As you might imagine, the printing of legitimate ballots needs to be handled with extreme care.
Here are some of the special considerations that we need to have in place to ensure that our involvement in providing printing services for elections upholds the integrity thereof.
Technological Capability
Our capability to deliver high-security printing solutions, such as holograms, microprinting, specialised security paper, watermarking, as well as embossing and debossing, makes us a uniquely qualified supplier in the region.
These printing capabilities are designed to prevent the possibility of counterfeiting documents, which is particularly critical when it comes to ballot papers.
High Security
To ensure that ballot papers are printed safely and securely and to prevent tampering, we need to ensure that our facilities have restricted access. This will eliminate the possibility of unauthorised entry and tampering.
As such, our facilities have surveillance systems, restricted access to printing plates, and limited personnel access in sensitive areas. We also implement a secure chain of custody for the ballot papers, carefully monitoring their handling throughout the printing process to the point where they leave our hands and are passed on to the client.
We make use of tamper-evident seals and tracking systems to monitor and document every step of the process. This ensures that everything is kept secure and above board.
Independent Verification
Independent quality assurance is also required to verify the accuracy and integrity of the ballot papers. Therefore, we partner with the national election entities to conduct a variety of random checks, including testing and neutral third-party revisions, to validate the printing process.
Naturally, transparent auditing is a critical part of our process. We welcome the auditing of our printing procedures to maintain the integrity of our ballot printing service. This involves physical inspections by political parties, independent third parties, and election observer organisations.
As a proudly South African printing company, we at Lebone Litho Printers are proud to be able to deliver high-security printing services to elections in the SADC region and to play a key role in supporting democracy in Africa! Contact us today to find out more!
