Administrative tabulation error in DAP National Congress CEC election results
The DAP held its 16th National Congress at the Penang International Sports Arena (PISA) where Party elections were held for the 20 Central Executive Committee (CEC) positions on the 15th December 2012.
Due to an unfortunate administrative tabulation error, the results which were announced on the evening of the 15th were not accurate. As a result of an error in the Excel spreadsheet, the votes for Candidates number 31 to 38 were exactly the same as those of Candidates number 61 to 68. This can be observed from the table below:
| No | Candidate | Votes | No | Candidate | Votes |
| 31 | LIM LIP ENG | 448 | 61 | WONG SAI HOONG | 448 |
| 32 | LIU TIAN KHIEW (RONNIE) | 761 | 62 | WONG SZE PHIN @ JIMMY | 761 |
| 33 | LOKE SIEW FOOK (ANTHONY) | 1202 | 63 | WU HIM VEN (VINCENT) | 1202 |
| 34 | M. KULA | 984 | 64 | YONG WUI WUI (VIOLET) | * |
| 35 | MANOGARAN A/L MARIMUTHU | 305 | 65 | ZAIRIL KHIR JOHARI | 305 |
| 36 | MANOHARAN MALAYALAM | 216 | 66 | ZULKIFLI BIN MOHD NOOR | 216 |
| 37 | NG CHIN TSAI | 39 | 67 | ROSELI BIN ABDUL GANI | 39 |
| 38 | NG WEI AIK | 407 | 68 | TAN BOON PENG | 407 |
* The votes of candidate no. 64 Yong Wui Wui (Violet) were not previously announced as she has withdrawn herself from the contest. Had her votes been published on that day, she would have been awarded 984 votes – the exact number of votes obtained by candidate no. 34 M. Kula.
The obvious error shown above was, however, not discovered before the official results were announced by the Speaker of the Congress.
The error was discovered after the Congress and I then notified the DAP Secretary General, Lim Guan Eng. Sdr Lim immediately instructed that the correct results must be made public subject to an internal audit to be carried out by Dr Ong Kian Ming and verification by an external auditor. The internal audit team re-tabulated the election tally sheet results to arrive at the correct figures.
Separately, the Party’s independent external auditor, TCMK Associated Chartered Accountants was appointed to verify the tally sheet results. Both the internal and external audit teams arrived at the same final results.
The audit revealed that Candidates number 61-68 were wrongly given the same results as Candidates number 31-38. The actual results for Candidates no. 61-68 are:
| No | Candidate | Votes |
| 61 | WONG SAI HOONG | 23 |
| 62 | WONG SZE PHIN @ JIMMY | 643 |
| 63 | WU HIM VEN (VINCENT) | 669 |
| 64 | YONG WUI WUI (VIOLET) | * |
| 65 | ZAIRIL KHIR JOHARI | 803 |
| 66 | ZULKIFLI BIN MOHD NOOR | 249 |
| 67 | ROSELI BIN ABDUL GANI | 69 |
| 68 | TAN BOON PENG | 40 |
* Candidate no. 64 Yong Wui Wui (Violet) has withdrawn
Hence, based on the updated post audit results, Candidate number 63, Wu Him Ven (Vincent), should have received only 669 votes and not 1202 votes. This would place him in the 26th position.
At the same time, Zairil Khir Johari should have received 803 votes, instead of 305 votes, and this would place him in the 20th position. That means that Zairil Khir Johari should have been automatically elected into the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) by virtue of his top 20 position.
I sincerely apologise to all the DAP members and delegates to the National Congress for the mistakes made in the tabulation process. I also want to apologize to the candidates whose votes and positions were wrongly announced as a result of these errors and especially to Wu Him Ven (Vincent) and Zairil Khir Johari whose positions among the top 20 vote getters were affected.
I take full responsibility for these errors. I wish to record my appreciation to the Party for insisting that the correct results be made public and regret any damage caused to the Party when the mistake was mine.
