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Media statement by Loke Siew Fook in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, 22nd August 2012: Call on the Election Commission to demonstrate its commitment to carry out electoral reform It has been more than 4 months since the completion and tabling of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform. During this time, the EC has yet to demonstrate its complete commitment to carry out electoral reform including implementing some of the recommendations of the PSC. As such, the DAP calls for the EC to demonstrate its commitment by carrying out the following: (1) The DAP calls upon the EC to conduct a comprehensive exercise to register overseas students as voters Section 2 of the Elections (Registration of Electors) Regulations 2002 clearly allows overseas students above the age of 21 to register as postal voters. Previously, this has been selectively interpreted to only allow government sponsored students who are studying overseas to register as postal voters. Because of public pressure and the recommendations of the PSC, all Malaysian students who are studying overseas can now register as postal voters, which should have been the case if the regulations were interpreted correctly. But the EC has not demonstrated its commitment to register as many overseas Malaysian students as possible as postal voters so that they can be part of the electorate and fulfill their responsibilities as Malaysian citizens. While the EC has listed the contact details of its appointed representatives in the various embassies and high commissions around the world (http://www.spr.gov.my/images/stories/pdf/senarai%20nama%20wakil%20spr%20di%20luar%20negara%20edited%2031%20julai%202012.pdf), this is not sufficient. To demonstrate its commitment, the EC needs to work with Malaysian embassies and High Commissions all around the world to reach out to various groups, the most important of which, are student organizations, especially in universities and colleges with a large number of Malaysians, in order to register as many overseas Malaysian students as possible as postal voters. Without these pro-active measures, which are not costly and are relatively easy to organize, it is not surprising that the registration rate for overseas students is very low, as mentioned by the EC chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz, in various newspaper reports. For example, there is no information about how students can register as postal voters in any of the official Malaysian embassy and high commission websites (http://www.kln.gov.my/web/guest/mission) or any contact information on who a student should get in touch with if he or she has any queries about registering as a postal voter. In addition, it is not clear if the EC has briefed its representatives in these embassies and high commissions on the proper procedure on what is required to register as a postal voter. For example, a student in Sydney, Australia, was asked to come in person to the Malaysian embassy in Canberra to register as a postal voter while the EC's own regulations clearly states that a person does not have to register in person as a postal voter but can provide the proper documentation via post, fax or email. (It should be noted that the EC's listing of appointed representatives in Australia does not include any contact for the High Commission in Canberra, Australia) Borang A dan Lampiran Maklumat ini hendaklah diisi dan disertakan dengan salinan MyKad atau salinan pasport antarabangsa dan salinan kad pelajar dan dihantar kepada Penolong Pendaftar Pemilih ini melalui pos, faks atau e-mel kepada Penolong Pendaftar Pemilih di pejabat perwakilan yang berkenaan. Penolong Pendaftar Pemilih yang telah menerima Borang A serta dokumen yang disertakan akan menghantar kepada Ibu Pejabat SPR di Putrajaya. If the EC's own representatives in the various Malaysian embassies and high commissions around the world are not very clear about the procedures for registering overseas students as postal voters and in fact makes it more difficult for these students to register by requiring them to register in person, it is not surprising that there have been so few registrations by students overseas. The DAP calls on the EC to:
(2) The DAP calls on the EC to demonstrate its commitment to clean up the electoral roll The PSC Report recommended for the EC to verify the electoral roll where more than 50 voters were found to be registered in one address (324 addresses with more than 100 voters, 938 with between 51 to 100 voters). Again, the EC has failed to demonstrate its commitment to address this issue. It has only taken minimal and cosmetic measures to address this issue. It published the names of voters in a certain localities who did not have house addresses and asked these voters to come forward to identify themselves and to provide their complete addresses. But this strategy is likely to have limited impact given that there is little chance that these voters would have found out about the EC's announcement and then visit the EC's website. In addition, the EC did not publish the names of voters who are registered in places with complete addresses including house numbers but with more than 50 voters in these addresses, which obviously raises the suspicion on whether these voters are really residents at these addresses. Needless to say, the EC did not send any staff to these addresses to verify whether all these voters actually live in these addresses. Furthermore, the EC has tried to make excuses by saying that the MIMOS analysis was confused over the differences between a locality - which has many addresses - and a specific address with just one house number. The example given by MIMOS was the Kampung Melayu Majidee locality in the Johor Bahru constituency. Sebagai contoh, di Lokaliti Kampung Melayu Majidee di Johor, yang telah dianggap sebagai satu alamat yang mempunyai lebih daripada 100 pemilih, di Lokaliti berkenaan sebenarnya terdapat berpuluh-puluh alamat lengkap dan yang tidak lengkap. Alamat-alamat tersebut kemudiannya disatukan sebagai satu Lokaliti iaitu Lokaliti Kampung Melayu Majidee. Hal ini telah disalah tafsir oleh MIMOS sebagai satu alamat, walhal ia sebenarnya adalah merupakan satu Lokaliti dalam Daerah Mengundi. When the voters in this locality was identified, it was found that those who did not have house addresses were nearly all foreign born voters (with Kod 71 under their state of birth) who were registered in the past 2 years while those who had complete house addresses and street names were born in Malaysia. The worrying thing is that even in the latest electoral roll update in Quarter 2, 2012, foreign born voters (with kod 71 in their ICs) and without house numbers or street names, continued to register themselves in the Kampung Melayu Majidee locality. This example clearly shows that the EC is not committed to ensuring that newly registered voters have complete addresses in order to prevent non-resident voters from registering in constituencies which they do not live in. (3) The DAP calls on the EC to provide a status update on all of the recommendations of the PSC report Many of the PSC recommendations involved the EC producing a report or updates 3 months after the completion of the PSC. This includes:
More than 3 months have elapsed since the PSC report but we still have yet to hear from the EC regarding these issues. To give the public the confidence that the EC is serious and committed about addresses these issues, we call upon the EC to follow up on these recommendations made by the PSC. Furthermore, the EC should explain to the public on why it objects to the establishment of a special committee to oversee the process of cleaning up the electoral roll, one of the key recommendations of the PSC report. If the EC fails to take even these very minimal and basic steps, it would demonstrate that the EC is not sincere in wanting to introduce electoral reform as well as to follow up on the recommendations made by the PSC. * Loke Siew Fook, DAPSY Chief & MP for Rasah
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