The Election Commission has refuted claims by the Perak PKR that the Pangkor state constituency's has seen a dramatic rise in the number of postal voters.

In an email correspondence with Malaysiakini , the EC's voter registration division secretary Yusniati Ishak said that number of new postal voters had remained at the 1,356 figure since the March 2008 elections.

This is a far cry from the 5,669 new postal voters which Perak PKR claims was padded into the electoral roll for Pangkor in 2010.

"For your information, the total postal voters for Pangkor during the 12th general election was 12,460. However, the total postal voters for Pangkor until ST4/2010 (fourth quarter of 2010) was 13,816," she said.

chan ming kai @ zeng min kai 02 Yusniati was responding to queries on allegations levelled by Perak PKR deputy election director Chan Ming Kai ( right ) on Tuesday.

The Simpang Pulai assemblyperson claimed that a whopping 8,470 new postal voters were inserted into the electoral rolls in six Perak state constituencies last year, with the bulk of it going to Pangkor.

In 2008, Perak Menteri Besar Zambry Abd Kadir, who garnered 10,906 votes, won the seat with a comfortable 5,785-vote majority against a PKR candidate who polled 5,121 votes.

Pakatan fears crippling effect in next polls

But it is not the state seat of Pangkor which the opposition is worried about.

Chan argued that the influx of postal voters into Pangkor will likely affect Pakatan Rakyat's chances of wresting the Lumut parliamentary seat from the BN.

Lumut, which has three state seats including Pangkor, was retained by Transport Minister and MCA secretary-general Kong Cho Ha in the last polls, with a wafer-thin majority of 298 votes.

Elaborating on the spike in the postal voters, specifically for the Pangkor constituency, Yusniati said there had been registration of new military and police personnel as well as their spouses, and those who changed their address after being transferred.

"Postal voters can change their voting address if they are transferred," she said.

She added that all postal voters - military, police and general operation force personnel and their spouses - wishing to apply to change their voting address due to transfers, need to personally fill up the Borang A - Pendaftaran Pemilih form.

"They need to submit the form to the assistant registrar appointed by the EC from the ranks of the military and police. All these applications will be forwarded by the assistant registrar to the EC for further processing."