Amendments to the election law to enable overseas voting will be ready by the end of the current parliamentary sitting, Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said today.

NONE "We have got feedback from the attorney-general and we are finalising (amendments to) the regulations and the forms,” Aziz told a press conference at the EC headquarters.

"It turns out that constitutional and legislative changes are not necessary, just (changes to) the regulations and forms are needed. We'll have to table these in Parliament.”

Aziz reminded Malaysians abroad that they would first have to register as ordinary voters, noting that the process would take time before these new voters were added to the electoral roll, and then a separate process would list them as overseas voters.

The enrolment period for new voters for the current quarter is from October to the end of December, and the updated roll is expected to be gazetted in February next year.

Aziz noted that the response so far from civil servants, government-sponsored students and their spouses abroad, who are already eligible for overseas postal voting, has been lukewarm.

“Anyhow, there are other Malaysians aboard and we hope that they will respond (to the overseas voter registration exercise),” he said.

The EC on Aug 25 announced that Malaysians abroad would be allowed to register as postal voters.

Resign, Aziz, deputy told

Since then, the registration of overseas voters has dragged on to this day, including missing a deadline imposed by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform in July.

This led to registered voters abroad, united under a group called MyOverseasVote (MOV), calling for the resignation of Aziz and his deputy on grounds that they refused to exercise the EC’s wide powers to implement voting by Malaysians overseas.

Asked about Penang’s application to revive local government elections, Aziz again declined to divulge any detail, except to say that he has written to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng several weeks ago and was waiting for Lim’s response.

“Otherwise, he would scold me (and ask) why am I revealing all the contents of my letter to him to the press. In any case, I have replied to his letter,” Aziz added.

Aziz had on Sept 21 told the media that he would not make EC’s decision on local council elections public before informing Lim.

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