DAP today lamented the new rule of the Selangor office of the Election Commission that requires copies of identity cards to be attached to voter registration forms as "unfair" and making an already uphill battle more "onerous".

NONE Speaking to reporters at the party headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, DAP publicity chief Tony Pua said by introducing the new ruling for all assistant registrars in Selangor, the EC was in fact punishing "the good boys along with the bad boys".

"The solution is meant to solve the problem (of political parties trying to register unqualified people as voters). It will, but it is like chopping off the nose to spite the face," he said.

According to Pua ( left) , doing so would prevent all other legitimate registrations to go on smoothly, and was likely to "severely limit" the number of voters registered by political parties such as the DAP.

"We have been commended for having the cleanest set of data (for voter registration), with the lowest amount of errors among political parties, at less than 10 percent.

"This new rule will make work extremely difficult. We set up (registration counters) in pasar malam , in office lobbies and in malls where will we can find plug points for photocopy machines - but how can we provide photocopy machines to more than 60 (DAP) assistant registrars (in Selangor)?" he asked.

Yesterday, Election Commission chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof told Malaysiakini that the new ruling came because more than 50 percent of voter registration forms submitted in Selangor were being rejected as the applicants have already registered, were dead, were permanent residents or underaged.

NONE The new ruling, Aziz ( left ) said, only applied to the state of Selangor, which had the most number of such cases.

Political parties were informed of this in a letter dated Aug 22, issued by Selangor Election Comission director Dzulkifli Abdul Rahman.

According to the letter, the new ruling came into force on that day, Aug 22.

Suggesting several solutions, Pua, who is also Petaling Jaya Utara MP, said the Election Commission could instead penalise only parties that submited shoddy voter registration forms, either with a suspension of registration by political parties that had a margin of error of more than 30 percent.

“I understand the EC’s problem. If our margin of error is less than 10 percent and the average is more than 50 percent, we can estimate that some parties have errors as high as 70 percent.

“This means that out of 5,000 forms keyed in by the EC, 3,500 will be rejected... so it is these parties that should be penalised,” he said, adding that the problem of shoddy registration in Selangor is believed to have cropped up over the past year.

Pua said as it is, the EC is losing the voter registration race with the number of eligible voters rising at a faster rate than voter registration.

“Selangor DAP registers up to 20,000 voters per quarter, but this is just a fraction of the more than four million Malaysians who are eligible to vote but are not registered,” he said.

“We have not appealed to the EC on this yet, but we don’t want this ruling to be applied on a discretionary basis.” 

Applicants rejected for having no religion

Besides this new ruling, the party also lamented the fact that an estimated one in 30 applicants registered by DAP were rejected because of discrepancies in the data on religion.

The MP said that the EC has rejected applicants who stated “no religion” on their voter registration forms or religions other than that stated on their MyKad.

Applicants were also rejected because their MyKad stated that they have no religion - something the DAP realised about nine months ago when the EC began presenting the reasons for rejected applications in a more orderly manner. 

“I know of someone who has tried to register four times but failed, only to find out after checking with a MyKad reader that his card states he has no religion.

“A person’s religion is irrelevant to his or her citizenship and right to vote. There are many people who are agnostic or atheist and this is not wrong according to the federal constitution,” Pua said.

He said many non-Muslims do not have their religions stated explicitly on the MyKad and there is no way an assistant registrar can check if the religion stated on the voter registration form matches that on the applicant’s MyKad.

“Non-Muslims can also change religions freely, and many don’t even know that this data is on the MyKad, so you can’t expect people to go to the National Registration Department to make changes once they change religion,” he said.

Pua said that the easiest way for the EC to handle problems with shoddy data is to reinstate automatic registration.

“This would make it easier for the EC, for it won’t have to deal with all this nonsense and can blame any error on the NRD,” he said.

Asked if this would infringe on a citizen’s freedom of choice, Pua said: “Is there freedom of choice when it comes to obtaining an identity card? (The freedom not to be registered as a voter) is not a crucial freedom.”

He added those who opt to not register because they do not want the EC to deal with their personal data should also know that the commission already has full access to every citizen’s information through the NRD database.

“People still have freedom not to vote. Registration only means someone is qualified to vote, but if they don’t want to vote, then don’t,” he said.

Pua also said that concerns about lower voter turnout as a result of automatic registration are also irrelevant and should not be an excuse against automatic registration.

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