Three hundred and forty-four people or 70.49 percent of the total 488 Malaysian postal voters in mainland China had cast their ballots by 6pm yesterday, according to Malaysian ambassador to China Iskandar Sarudin.     

China recorded the third highest number of postal voters after the United  Kingdom and Australia.     

On another development, a spokesman of the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing said voters could still collect their priority envelope at the embassy from April 29 to May 5, from 9am to 5pm during working hours (except on Labour Day which falls on May 1).     

But they needed to ensure the envelope arrived at the Election Commission (EC) office in their constituencies before 5pm on May 5, he said.     

Meanwhile, Lee Yee Thian, 36, who last voted in 1999, said the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing had done a good job of providing a facilitating station to vote.     

"I missed two voting opportunities in the past two general elections when I was in the United Kingdom...it was not practical for overseas Malaysians to go home to vote at that time," he said.     

Fuad Nawawi, 43, who has been residing in Beijing for three years, lauded the EC's move in setting up a station to facilitate Malaysians to exercise their voting rights, with the new postal voting system.   

Fuad, who works in the oil and gas industry, is a first-time voter. Previously, he worked in Vietnam and the United Kingdom.

US voting smooth

Meanwhile forty-four Malaysian postal voters in the United States cast their votes for the 13th general election in New York.    

The electoral process held at the Permanent Representative Office of Malaysia to the United Nations (UN) in New York ran smoothly and was completed in two hours after voting started at 9 am local time.      

Apart from voters residing in New York, the others flew in or took a bus from Indiana, Boston and Texas.      

"The response was very encouraging," said Malaysian consul-general in New York Syed Bakri Syed Abdul Rahman.      

The electoral process was witnessed by 10 officials from the Malaysian consulate-general's office in New York and the Permanent Representative Office of Malaysia to the UN.      

The voters were mainly students pursuing master degrees who had voted in the 12th general election in Malaysia.      

- Bernama