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The Election Commission must step up its voters registration exercise
Press Statement by John Chung (Petaling Jaya, Friday): The Election Commission (EC) must step up its voters registration exercise to ensure more eligible Malaysians register themselves as voters. After close to a year since the launch of the EC voters registration exercise on 16 July 2002, it is disappointing to note that less than 15% of the total number of Malaysians aged 21 and above have registered as voters. According to figures released by the EC previously:
During a dialogue between DAP Socialist Youth leaders and the EC a little over a month ago on 26 April, the EC revealed that since the start of its voters registration exercise, about 220,000 eligible Malaysians had registered as voters. Although the number of new registrations would have gone up slightly in the past two months, the overall rate in which the voters registration exercise is progressing is still too slow in view of the fast approaching general election. If we were to take the figure of 220,000 registrations at 640 post offices nationwide over the past ten months we will arrive at the abysmally low ratio of 1 registration at each post office daily. From feedbacks obtained by the party, many people are not aware that they can register as voters at post offices nationwide. There is clearly a need for the EC and Pos Malaysia to increase public awareness and embark on publicity campaigns through the media and newspapers to attract more young people to register as voters. Those who have yet to register as voters should do so quickly especially as they might miss out on their right to vote if they register too late like what happened to the 680,000 new voters who were prevented from voting in the last general election. (6/6/2003) * John Chung, DAP National Publicity Bureau Assistant Secretary |