Highly suspicious of several addresses - which supposedly housed more than 25 voters each- in the Sibu electoral roll, intrepid volunteers from independent watchdog, Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) decided to pay them an announced visit.

Naturally, they followed the addresses given in the electoral roll. This, of course, was the sensible thing to do. Unfortunately, they were to discover later that there was nothing sensible about these electoral addresses.

To begin with, they did not exist.

After failing to locate the addresses, Mafrel's Sibu coordinator Ong Boon Keong went to Sibu City Council expecting that he would at least find some answers as the council is responsible for residential addresses in the city.

But surprise, surprise. After scouring the city's map, city officials too could not find the addresses which were listed in the Election Commission's electoral roll. After several attempts, they threw up their hands in frustration.

"The council's valuation officer confirmed that the addresses had been messed up by the Election Commission and have been rendered untraceable. They even showed us a map of the city to illustrate that the addresses simply do not exist," Ong told malaysiakini today when contacted.

He believed the problem arose due to the EC's 'mishandling' of addresses which has made it impossible to trace down the thousands of voters listed in the electoral roll.

"Since there are a lot more similar untraceable addresses, it means that thousands of voters are untraceable and thus creating a suspicion of unfairness via the electoral roll," said Ong.

Look-out call

Ong reiterated Mafrel's call to the EC to rectify any electoral roll irregularities to avoid any suspicion of unfairness during the fast approaching Sarawak's state elections on May 20.

"The voters must be accessible to all candidates through competently prepared and updated voters' rolls before any elections can be called free and fair. The apparently untraceable voters we have found here cast doubts on EC's capability to carry out its statutory duties."

He said until EC does the necessary corrections, there is little Mafrel can do to improve the situation.

"We can only give a list to polling agents of all political parties and ask them to be on the look-out for voters from these suspicious addresses. The polling agents will make the necessary complaints to the EC," explained Ong.

Towards this, he added, Mafrel needed to train polling agents who sometimes unaware of their actual duties at polling stations.

"Most polling agents are too busy crossing off the names of voters who come to cast their votes when their focus should be on the identity card of the voters to ensure that they are genuine voters."

'Many discrepancies'

Last week, Mafrel volunteers also in Sibu identified an address within the Bawang Assan state constituency which had 94 voters registered staying in a five-storey office block of an accounting firm which was also the address of 14 registered companies.

Last Saturday, Mafrel chairperson Abdul Malek Hussin claimed that the EC had misled the people by claiming that the Sarawak electoral roll was clean.

He said Mafrel's preliminary findings from its verification of electoral rolls exercise covering Kuching, Sibu and Miri found 'many discrepancies which need to be corrected'.

The elections watchdog has mobilised eight officers and some 60 local volunteers to monitor the states elections in three main zones which are the North Zone based in Miri, Central Zone (Sibu) and South Zone (Kuching).

It will also assist with voter education and offer training, if and when required, to polling agents and counting agents of political parties and candidates.