EC wants fresh voter roll

I don't think a fresh voter roll will avoid criticism from political parties. There are always something to criticize.

But, I am for a new roll. After more than 50 years, the current roll is full of rubbish. It will take an extremely huge effort to clean up the existing electoral roll.

But, SPR needs to revamp it electoral management first. It also need to set up an automatic verification system with the National Registration Dept. If it is not done, a fresh roll will eventually become a toilet roll.

PR parties usually do minimum assistance for the voters on electoral information. BN do most of the work. We face a lot of problems with the roll, a few of these problems in Tanjong are as followed:

• Same address but referring to actually two or three houses/buildings. For example, XX Pengkalan Weld can refer to a building with the no XX on Pengkalan Weld Road, a house on the old Reclamation Area and a house on the Surname Jetties. Therefore, one address can have more than 20 voters.
• Many pre-war houses do not exist anymore, but most are still in the list. For example, in Tek Soon Road and Jalan Lintang (where Komtar is built now).
• Many voters in the list have incomplete addresses.
• Dead voters are still not removed, it should be an automatic process.
• Voters in the same house, but voting in different state constituencies.
• Voters in the same house, but voting in different schools.
  
• Voters missing from the list after the electoral roll is updated.
• And many others.

It is not a surprise that the Pakatan Rakyat parties took the opportunities to claim electoral frauds.

A clean roll that is done transparently will removed one of their election gimmick.

P.S: There are most probably some inappropriate election practices in the past in Penang by the parties in government and the opposition parties. I do not hold this view for the Kelantan electoral roll, I think there are frauds in that state. But, generally the electoral roll in the country is free from frauds but as I said it is full of inaccuracies.

Star Online, Monday, 26 may 2008
EC wants fresh voter roll
By G. MANIMARAN and ZANARIAH ABD. MUTALIB PUTRAJAYA: The Election Commission wants a fresh voter roll and this will involve the re-registration of the 10.9 million Malaysians who are already registered as voters.

EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman (pic) said a new roll which catered to the current needs was necessary and would be acceptable to all parties.

“The new registration exercise will be held if the Government accepts the proposal. We hope the proposal will be accepted,” he said this during an interview with mStar Online, The Star's Malay news portal.

Abdul Rashid said the EC would propose to the Government to have a special law to enable the drawing up of a new roll after the commission’s panel members meet on June 9.

“We have jurisdiction to only examine and update the current list and not to come up with a fresh list,” he said.

He said the proposal was among those brought up in the EC’s post-mortem meeting after the recent elections.

Abdul Rashid likened the existing roll as a “thorn in his flesh” because it had come under heavy criticism from many quarters.

The current roll contains the names of 10.9 million voters.

It excludes another four million people who are eligible to vote but have not registered.

Political parties have alleged that the current voter list, which has been updated from time to time since the last 50 years, did not have the most recent records. They also alleged that it contained phantom voters.

Between 2004 and March 2008, the EC received 235 complaints concerning the names of voters which were missing from the list.

Investigations carried out by the EC later revealed that the names of these voters were omitted due to several factors, including being listed as “doubtful status” after the identity card numbers were confirmed to be missing from the National Registration Department database.

Another reason was that the identity card numbers were certified by the department as belonging to someone else, in some cases dead people.

There were also complaints that the names of certain voters were transferred from one constituency to another without their knowledge.

Abdul Rashid said that the entire process of preparing the bill and new registration exercise would take up to two years.

As such, a fresh roll would be ready in time for the 13th general election.

“It will depend on whether the Government will approve it or if a study needs to be carried out,” he said.

The entire process will include registration, exhibition of the new roll, investigation into any objections, re-exhibition and the preparation of the new master list.

Abdul Rashid said the EC would also need to discuss the matter at length with the political parties.