The Election Commission has finished questioning at least eight officers based at the headquarters and in Selangor over the polling day debacle, which left thousands of voters in the state stranded without knowing where to cast their ballots.

EC secretary Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said the officers were interviewed as part of the internal probe into the March 21 fiasco.

He said the officers were from the commission's IT division and those involved in the operations, including state officers.

"The testimonies of the officers have been recorded. Now, it is up to the chairperson to decide on the next step," he said when contacted.

"Anyway, this is an internal issue which has been blown up by the media. These issues are minor problems that can be resolved internally."

As director of operations for the general election, Wan Ahmad was tasked with preparing a report on what went wrong in Selangor's 56 polling districts involving 250,000 registered voters.

He said less than 30 percent of them were affected by the problems arising from the last-minute decision to split the voters' list based on the additional polling streams created to ease voter traffic.

'Lack of co-ordination'

The report has not been released to the public, while EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman (photo) could not be reached for further elaboration.

Berita Harian, citing Wan Ahmad's report today, reported that the problem was due to the lack of co-ordination between certain EC divisions and officers on the ground, as well as technical hitches.

The EC was severely criticised following the Selangor polling fiasco, which led to polling hours being extended by two hours.

It also bungled in the Sungai Lembing state constituency in Pahang, where ballot papers depicted a Keadilan symbol next to the name of the PAS candidate. The EC had to declare the election null and void for the seat and fix March 28 for the re-election.

Subsequently, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he wanted a report from the EC on the problems encountered.

Critics have made numerous calls for an independent commission of inquiry to probe the allegations of electoral discrepancies. Abdul Rashid himself had suggested this, but Abdullah shot it down as "unnecessary".