NGO Pusat Komunikasi Masyarakat (Komas) is unhappy that the Election Commission (EC) has been registering new voters without addressing the overwhelming problems in the electoral roll first.

"The EC should clean up the electoral roll and do proper audit," said its citizenship and voter education programme coordinator Arul Prakkash (below).

NONE"They (the EC) are calling people to register new voters. They want people to just forget about the fraud in the (electoral) roll, and are diverting the issue," he added.

He said this when asked to comment on EC deputy chief Wan Ahmad Wan Omar's warning for the public not to partake in the PKR-run Selangor government's efforts to verify the state’s electoral roll.

Komas, which launched its Jom Pantau (Let's Monitor) project in the run up to the coming general election, also revealed more irregularities in the system today, with more than 190 problems having been detected.

The 'Selangorku Bersih' campaign was launched by Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim recently, mobilising civil servants and Village Development and Security Committee (JKKK) members to help clean up the electoral roll.

They are entrusted with the task of conducting house-to-house verification of voter identity registered at the addresses and raise objections should they fail to locate them

The state had pumped in RM5 million for the project initiated in April, after discovering the spike in the number of voters in the state arousing suspicion of irregularities and fraud, including the registration of foreigners as voters, and the transfer of outside voters into the state.

Technical error after error?

Asked if he suspects a concerted effort to manipulate the electoral roll or if the discrepancies could be simply blamed on careless mistakes, Arul said:

"The media always hears that it is a technical error, technical errors cannot be repeated a 100 times, (that shows that there is a problem is the) system to register voters.

"There are cases where persons didn't register and someone else registers on their behalf.

"When we call the agent, they just say that they received the registration form with a signature (but) signatures cannot verified, (and they don't bother) whether the details (in the form) are correct when compared to their MyKads."

Arul, who sits on the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) steering committee added that the best solution for the problem will be to implement the automatic registration system, where an individual is recognised as a voter at 21 without having to register manually.

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