PKR POLLS | The PKR central election committee (JPP) is not considering voiding the election results of six divisions previously affected by technical difficulties, said its secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution today. 

“They (the JPP) are studying it (the problems) and they will make a decision based on the options they have discussed.

“But it is not at the stage where they want to batal (cancel the results), they are still working hard to identify the source of the technical glitch,” he said when asked during a press conference in Putrajaya.

PKR election director Rashid Din had previously told Malaysiakini that a re-election for five divisions in Malacca and another division in Negeri Sembilan might be necessary. 

Rashid had also stated that a decision was expected yesterday.

Today, however, Saifuddin said that no time frame had been imposed on the JPP to resolve the issue, which had resulted in only a portion of the votes being counted.

“When members voted by clicking on the tab, clicks that were supposed to be counted were not.

“Therefore some who clicked (and voted) were counted, but some who clicked were not included in the tally,” he explained.

Rashid previously admitted that a “likely cause” for this was that the tablets used for voting had run out of mobile data, meaning the results could not be uploaded to PKR's election system.

As a result, the votes were stuck on the tablets and could not be transferred to the server.

Continue with e-voting

Today, Saifuddin played down incidences of technical glitches in the ongoing party election, adding that the party had no plans to revert from the electronic voting system to manual voting.

“Not at all (will we change from e-voting).

“We had problems on the first day (of voting) in Penang and Kedah.

“But later in Johor, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and Perlis - all these happened as planned. It’s only that we again had problems in Malacca (and Negeri Sembilan).

“[...] The priority now is to update the integrity of the system. If there are technical problems, the IT and technical team will assist the JPP,” he said.

When the party election kicked off in September, all results in Kedah had to be invalidated due to technical issues, requiring a total do-over for the state.

Saifuddin, who is also the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister, had earlier announced a list of 16 price-controlled foodstuffs for the Deepavali period.

In effect from Nov 3 to Nov 9, the full list can be seen below.