The Election Commission (EC) has been rejecting the call to prosecute irresponsible parties who have been proven to to manipulate the electoral roll, said DAP election strategist Ong Kian Ming.

In a statement issued today, Ong, who joined DAP recently, claimed that the EC has failed to take any concrete action against persons who have been trying to and are still trying to manipulate the electoral roll.

NONE He said during a meeting with the EC on last Monday, the EC highlighted a few steps which they have taken and are taking in order to clean up the electoral roll.

“One such initiative is to locate the 12-digit identity card (IC) number of all police and army voters to check that these postal voters were also not registered using their 12-digit IC number.

“The decision of the EC to require all new army and police postal voter applicants, starting from 2012, to include their 12-digit IC number in their application forms, is also a positive step towards ensuring that these voters are not registered twice in the electoral roll, once using their army or policy identity card number and once using their 12-digit civilian identity card number,” he said.

The project director for the Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project (Merap) said Merap has identified many past cases of such double registrations as well as cases whereby an army or postal voter has given their 12-digit civilian IC to their spouses to be registered as postal voters.

NONE Some army or postal voters, according to Ong, were also found to have listed themselves as their own spouse in order to be registered as postal voters using their 12-digit civilian IC numbers.

“I was also informed that the EC has taken action to locate the 12-digit civilian IC numbers of all existing army or police voters. As of Oct 15, 2012, there remain 411 police and 613 army postal voters whose 12-digit civilian IC numbers have not been located,” he explained.

However, Ong stressed that the EC refused to take any independent action against those who have tried to manipulate the electoral roll other than removing certain assistant registrars.

“For example, the EC found 60 voters who had tried to register as army or police postal voters and as regular voters in quarter two of 2012. This is a clear violation of Section 3(1)(a) of the Election Offences Act 1954,” he claimed.

The section states that a person who “knowingly makes any false statement on or in connection with any application to be placed on any register of electors” is guilty of committing an election offence. which carries a maximum jail sentence of two years or a maximum fine of RM5,000 or both.

An offence to register twice

Ong elaborated that these voters in question clearly knows that it is an offense to register twice, once as a postal voter and another time as a regular voter since every voter has to declare that they have not registered as a voter in another constituency in Borang A Pendaftaran Pemilih.

“The presence of irresponsible parties and individuals who may have tried to manipulate the electoral roll was also detected in the quarter four 2011 electoral roll given to the members of the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on electoral reform.

“The analysis comparing the date of birth as well as the date of application for all voters found that 282,086 voters were registered before they turned 21. Indeed, there were voters whose date of application were before their date of birth!” he said.

What is more worrying, commented Ong, is the fact that the EC knows of these attempts to manipulate the electoral roll.

“The EC admitted that they have revoked the status of a number of assistant registrars who tried to manipulate the electoral roll by, for example, registering voters who have already died.

“But this is not sufficient. It must take legal action against such parties or individuals in order to send a strong signal that the EC is serious about maintaining the integrity of the electoral roll and to dissuade irresponsible parties and individuals from trying to manipulate the electoral roll.”

Ong cited the example of Negri Sembilan DAP taking the initiative to lodge a police report in February 2012 to ask the EC to investigate and charge the two assistant registrars whose status were revoked by the EC because they were found to have tried to register already deceased voters.

“But nine months later, no action has been taken, either by the EC, the police or the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

“If the EC is indeed serious about preserving the integrity and accuracy of the electoral roll, it must not only revoke the status of irresponsible assistant registrars and delete the records of dubious registrations, it must also take concrete legal action to see those responsible for these manipulation attempts charged and punished under Section 3 of the Election Offences Act 1954,”  he added.

Ong also revealed that the EC, when asked, admitted that to date, no one has been charged under this section for attempting to manipulate the electoral roll.