New system to check for dubious voters

Nine days before the scheduled Bersih 2.0 rally, the Election Commission (EC) has announced the introduction of a new system for the public to check for dubious voters.

EC deputy chief Wan Ahmad Wan Omar (right) said that the new system allows voters to see which other voters are registered to their homes.

He said that the new system, which will go live on the EC website tomorrow, would require voters to key in their identity card numbers to access the information.

In the event that dubious voters are detected through the system, the voter who is legitimately registered to that address can lodge a complaint online.

“Then SPR will use the power under Rule 25, under Elections (Registration of Electors) Regulations 2002, to change the address of the voter according to his identity card,” he said.

The announcement of the new system follows revelations by Gombak MP Azmin Ali (left) that there were six voters who were illegitimately registered at his mother’s house

Among the six were five ethnic Chinese and an ethnic Malay whom Azmin said were all unrelated to his family. This information was obtained from the master electoral roll gazetted on December 2010.

Azmin claims that this is one of many incidents which show that the integrity of the electoral roll is in question.

The EC has admitted to this but said they cannot provide any remedy to the situation unless the six dubious voters step forward to request for a change in address.

‘Smart partnership’ with MACC

Wan Ahmad was speaking to reporters after speaking for about two hours at a special public forum titled ‘Bersih's demands - what is the Election Commissions explanation?’ in Kuala Lumpur.

Asked about the recommendations made by the EC to the authorities to tackle vote-buying, Wan Ahmad said the commission was in the process of helping the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) tackle the scourge.

“We have a ‘smart partnership’ with MACC. We (have met) MACC on how to draw some guidelines to help them. We are not going to take over the role of MACC,” he said, stressing that the EC can only perform an administrative role and not enforcement.

“When political parties are campaigning, they would do anything to win votes, including vote-buying. Thus we are now working closely with MACC to come up with a certain approach to help them and to provide information (so they can) to go after the culprit.”

He said that critics must be mindful that allegations of vote-buying must be able to stand in court for the authorities to take action.

On calls for a longer campaign period, Wan Ahmad said the EC would consider the request, but during his speech earlier, he was lukewarm about the idea.

Wan Ahmad said that technology was very advanced now and this refuted claims that a longer campaign period was needed.

‘Everyone knows Anwar’

He said Malaysia was unlike Indonesia, Thailand or Philippines which had a large pool of voters and a difficult terrain which pose accessibility problems.

“But our country is developed so people can be reached within minutes with advanced technologies. There are electronic media all sorts of media and people can slander others in all sorts of way.

“There is no one who does not know what is PKR, PAS and DAP, no one who needs to listen to longer ceramah to understand Anwar Ibrahim’s policies, to understand Nik Aziz Nik Mat’s intentions.

“Everyone knows the policies of Pakatan Rakyat, DAP and PAS, although the level of understanding may differ (due to socio-economic and educational background).

“People who go to the ballot boxes have already made up their minds... (they claim) they want to meet the undecided group, but the undecided group are not stupid. If they like BN they will go with BN.

“We only have 28 million people. We are developed. You can even reach the most interior areas of Sabah within one hour by plane and you can even SMS,” he said.

A longer campaign period, a clampdown on vote-buying and ensuring the integrity of the electoral roll are part of the eight demands by Bersih 2.0, a pressure group seeking electoral reform.

The forum today was organised in response to Bersih 2.0's plans to hold a mass rally on July 9 to create awareness on the matter and petition the Agong to put pressure on the government.

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