Serious discrepencies have been detected in the electoral roll, including the existence of "phantom voters", which could compromise the integrity of the upcoming general elections and undermine the democratic process, the Malaysian Citizens' Election Watch (Pemantau) reported today.

Pemantau head coordinator Kamar Ainiah Kamaruzaman said the unofficial election monitor has received hundreds of complaints from the public over the past few days regarding irregularities in the electoral roll.

These irregularities include the names of non-existent people and non-existent addresses, as well as dubious and unrealistic voter names, such as "1403215018".

"Some of the voters registered using other people's address, some addresses do not even exist, neither the road name nor the street, and some are addresses of a graveyard," said Kamar.

Complaints have also been filed regarding the inclusion of deceased voters on the roll, the "migration" of voters from one constituency to another without their consent and the assigning of similar identity card numbers to more than one voter.

More than half of the names on the electoral roll also do not bear the voters' date of birth, an irregularity which is alarming because the eligibility of the voters can be questioned as only those aged 21 and above are entitled to vote. Names of people who have not registered themselves with the Election Commission, as required by electoral rules, have also appeared on the election register.

Kamar pointed out further discrepencies on the electoral roll involving military personnel, icluding multiple listing of armed forces personnel in more than one unit and the inclusion of retired officers on the register.

Pemantau has called upon the Election Commission to rectify the situation and to issue a public statement outlining the steps it will take to do so as well as to confirm that the electoral roll is clean and fit to be used for the forthcoming elections.

According to Kamar, Permantau has passed on some of the complaints received by the watchdog to the Election Commission prior to Nomination Day, but the issue has not been addressed by the Commission as yet.

"More than a week has passed since the election date was announced. The Election Commission should no longer keep silent about the issue."