Urge EC to implement automatic voter registration or allow more representatives from the political parties to be appointed as Assistant Registrars if they cannot improve their efficiency in registering more voters

There are currently 17.6 million Malaysians who are eligible to vote in Malaysia. However, only 13.4 million have registered themselves as voters while the remaining 4.2 million have not. In other words, in every 4 Malaysian adults, one does not have the right to vote if the 14th General Election is called tomorrow.

Voter registration should be handled with top priority. It is therefore very disappointing when Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Dato’ Sri Azalina binti Othman Said revealed in a parliamentary written reply dated March 30, 2016 that only 617,254 Malaysians have registered as voters in between 2013 till 2015. In average, only 205,751 Malaysians registered themselves a year. At this pace, it is going to take 20 years to register all the unregistered voters!

According to the Election Commission 2009 Annual Report, a total of 279,490 new voters were registered in 2009. The number increased by three-fold to 820,156 in 2010[1]. The voter registration exercise reached its peak in 2011, where 1,023,170 Malaysians were registered as new voters in that year alone[2]. However, the number of new voters dropped by 30% in 2012.[3] And then in 2013, only a total of 195,193 new voters were registered.[4]

Why the outcome of voter registration varied so much? I believe the number of appointed Assistant Registrars was the key.

In year 2011, there were 5720 Assistant Registrars from political parties. However, the number reduced to 4777 in 2012. And in 2013, we only had 1901 Assistant Registrars from Political Parties because in November 2012, EC made a decision to neither extend the term of the existing AROs from political parties nor to appoint new ones.

If EC cannot improve their efficiency in registering more voters, they must either implement automatic voter registration, or allow more representatives from the political parties to be appointed as Assistant Registrars. Before this, political parties from both sides had conducted various roadshows and campaigns using own resources in morning markets, night markets or shopping malls without any financial assistance from the EC. Until today, EC has failed to give any solid and reasonable grounds as to why they decided to drop all Assistant Registrars from political parties.

At the end of the day, what is important is that every Malaysian has the right to decide their fate and future. Such rights should not be denied by complicating a simple process through bureaucratic processes and procedures.

Source:-

[4] http://www.spr.gov.my/index.php/component/flippingbook/book/14/Array?layout=edit