COMMENT | Malaysia’s diaspora sends tens of thousands of votes

COMMENT | The overseas postal ballot in GE15 will be distributed across the country today and tomorrow, setting a new high for representation of Malaysians abroad and making the diaspora itself a voting bloc. At the time of writing, nearly 12,000 overseas votes had been collected, the bulk of which was being flown back home.

At the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), volunteer flyers will be able to hand over the ballots to ‘runners’ up to 11pm today. These runners will then use a pre-arranged distribution network to carry the votes to the appropriate returning officers or their agents across the country.

Symbiotic relationships have sprouted, almost organically, among NGOs abroad and at home, volunteers, their families, friends and, most importantly, overseas voters.

Clearly, voters living abroad are now a constituency with clout. An estimated 50,000 Malaysians living outside the country have registered to vote. It’s impossible to gauge the final tally when counting concludes in the days to come.

Nevertheless, more than 100 people carrying precious cargo for GE15 have flown out from at least 27 countries: Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

In the UK, where most Malaysians abroad live, the ballot count was conducted at Malaysia Hall, London, beginning 6am on Nov 17. The overseas vote from the UK and Ireland was a whopping 6,932, or 140kg of ballots.

Australia follows the UK with the most number of Malaysian residents. In Melbourne, 2,573 ballots were collected in six centres, and six flyers are due to return to Malaysia. Separately, another six flyers have carried Sydney’s 1,001 ballots from more than a dozen centres. In Sydney this morning, votes are still being collected by volunteer couriers who are flying back home today.

Tallies are still being taken in cities across the world’s time zones. By 10.55 GMT today (5.55am in Kuala Lumpur), the numbers stand at: France (248 ballots), Wellington (74 ballots), Geneva (44 ballots) and San Francisco (372 ballots, four collectors and two flyers).

Unique partnership

Malaysia’s diaspora has chiselled its demographic with the strength of a unique partnership, hardworking, determined, truly Malaysian and willing to go where no one has gone before, so to speak, to Get Out the Vote (GOTV).

Malaysia’s children, homegrown and living abroad, the NGOs they support and the volunteers that have almost organically moved to the centre of action, have come to the GE15 table to bring voice and vote to support people at home and exercise their democratic rights.

The partnership has brought about change - very real change - that bequeaths the right to choose and vote to more and more people, more and more thousands, which can only make louder the voice of citizens calling for accountability, justice, transparency and fairness.

Whatever the GE15 outcome, it can only serve Malaysians well to remember that voters have turned night into day before, and two steps back is not the same as turning back.

Today, the voices of NGOs like Global Bersih, headquartered in Europe, Amsa (Australian, Malaysian, Singaporean Association) and Masca (Malaysian Students Council of Australia) - just to begin with - are heard loud and clear.

The target audience has been Malaysians abroad who are eligible to become overseas voters. In the background, Global Bersih and Amsa have lobbied the Election Commission (EC) to examine its efficiency and purpose, to serve the voter.

For months now, these groups have urged, begged and nagged overseas Malaysians to embrace the overseas ballot.

Groups like Global Bersih swamped social media platforms with information on how to register, along with motivational videos.

The plan was: Get as many people as possible to register for the postal ballot, raise an army of volunteers to collect the ballots in cities across the world, and find private citizens who would fly home with the overseas ballots.

For days now, these volunteer couriers have been touching down at KLIA, and handing over the ballots to groups like Undi18 and Vote Malaysia. These local NGOs will in turn deliver the ballots to the appropriate vote-counting centre.

However, some Malaysians living abroad have missed the EC’s deadline to register as voters, and some will receive their ballots too late for tomorrow’s big day. Still, tens of thousands were mobilised by NGOs at home and abroad, which came together so the results of GE15 may represent the Malaysian voter more than the wishes of any politician.

Last-minute assistance

The overseas voting system and attendant procedures need urgent improvement. Two weeks is simply not enough for EC to mail postal ballots around the globe, and for Malaysians to scramble and send their votes home on time. Post-Covid, every agency is struggling for staff, including EC and courier companies, and by late last night in Sydney, many Malaysians had still not received their ballots.

EC knew this two-week period would not support a high voter turnout, and Malaysians everywhere will wonder about both their motivation and masters.

In last-minute assistance to help New Zealand deal with the late arrivals of ballots, Global Bersih and the Global Malaysian Network, a few hours ago, extended the reach of the GE15 Volunteer Runner Network (VRN).

Global Bersih’s representative in New Zealand, Joshua Ng, said VRN will station volunteers at KLIA after 3pm today when the Undi18 team closes shop and begins the critical task of distributing the ballots. VRN will be stationed at Level 3, KLIA 1, between 3pm and 11pm today, collecting ballots from flyers, for delivery to Malaysian polling centres first thing tomorrow.

For people on international flights who need to use the VRN drop-off service, VRN has set up a virtual concierge.

Joshua’s note to the Global Bersih team said collected ballots “will then be delivered to all of Semenanjung except Langkawi, Sarawak - Kuching, Bintulu, Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan”. At the time of writing, VRN had put out a call for volunteer runners to cover Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and other areas of Sabah and Sarawak, as well as a flyer for the KL-Penang-Langkawi sector.

To see this unfold (as I continue to do because I am part of the Global Bersih chat group that has been brought together), is to have a unique appreciation of #MalaysiaBoleh and #KitaBoleh, that must-do-lah mentality.

If you were here, you’d also see how you can go somewhere else and never leave Malaysia. Citizens abroad have simply decided that not voting in GE15 tomorrow is simply not an option.

‘Gotong-royong’ delivers record overseas ballot

WILLIAM de CRUZ was the first president of Global Bersih. He is based in Australia.

Day 13 | GE15 debutante tells of voters’ messages of support

Malaysian pilots, volunteers pitch in to fly thousands of ballots home

NGOs prep to sort postal ballots flown home on passenger flights

Overseas postal voters claim they've yet to receive ballot papers

VoteMalaysia crowdfunds to bring home postal votes

‘Gotong-royong’ delivers record overseas ballot