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The Election Commission (EC) wants parties who question the validity of 64,100 names of postal voters in the electoral roll of April 9, 2010 to provide detailed proof.
EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said as the allegation was general, it would be difficult for the EC to carry out thorough investigation into the claim.
“So, the EC is asking for detailed information to be submitted as proof on all the 64,100 postal voters to enable it to check the records with the electoral roll,” he told reporters in Putrajaya yesterday.
Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was quoted in a Suara Keadilan news report dated Oct 2 with the heading, ‘Audit Confirms EC Cheats – Anwar’, as stating the 64,100 names of postal voters included in the electoral roll on April 9, 2010 might possibly have not gone through the process of verification and public objection.
To the claim in the news report that the names of 77,246 new voters were not in the 12th general election voter registration roll, Abdul Aziz explained that each application had to go through a certain process and not accepted straight away by the EC.
“This includes data processing, determining of locality and public display for claims and objections before the voter’s name can be gazetted. Perhaps there were names that received public objections and if there were, the names could not be registered but to be investigated first.”
Abdul Aziz said if comparisons were made between the list in the early part of the year with the new list, surely there would be differences with regard to the postal voters and ordinary voters.
On the claim that 304,136 postal voters whose identity card (IC) number did not match with that in the electoral roll and the questionable application dates, he said up to the second quarter of 2012, there were 274,247 names not present in the electoral roll out of the 161,756 members of the Malaysian armed forces, 110,055 from the police and 2,436 names from abroad.
“This means that the figure of 304,136 quoted by Anwar is incorrect, so he needs to give details and which electoral roll he had used.”
On 2,522 voters from the armed forces and police whose new IC number did not match with their names, he said the EC from time to time had tried to obtain their 12-digit IC numbers.
“As at Oct 5, there were still 1,042 members of the armed forces (420) and police (622) still without such information in the electoral roll,” he said.
‘No need for Election Act to be amended’
Abdul Aziz also said that there was no need for the Elections Act 1958 (Revised 1970) to be amended to allow Malaysians living abroad to vote in the coming general election, based on feedback received from the Attorney-General’s (AG) Chambers.
“According to the AG, only the form and rules need to be amended and these amendments will be tabled at the current Parliament sitting,” he added.
The EC had earlier sought advice from the AG’s Chambers on whether there was a need for the Elections Act to be amended to add a condition for Malaysians abroad to be in Malaysia for at least once within five years before Parliament is dissolved to be eligible to vote.
Besides this, they also need to apply and register as postal voters to ensure they know about the political developments in the country.
Currently, only full-time students and civil servants abroad with their spouse can do postal voting after applying and registering as postal voters.
– Bernama
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