The focus on the Election Commission on the issue of phantom/imported voters as a genre of illegal or 'wrongly registered' voters may shift the focus of the role of the National Registration Department or Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara (JPN) in the problem.

In the Likas case, which is available in the law reports to be read, ([2001] 3 MLJ 433), the court heard evidence from a district officer in Sabah as to how blue identity cards (for citizens) were issued to foreigners on the strength of a letter from the Native Court.

At that time the district officer knew no better and made recommendations to JPN to issue blue ICs based on the letter of the Native Court.

He testified that that "the main factor causing loss to the Berjaya government in 1985 to PBS was because Berjaya leaders sold the rights of Sabahans to foreigners, totalling 40,000 by making them blue identity cards, thus they became citizens." He was a Berjaya candidate in the 1986 state election.

He did make a claim of a conspiracy to register illegal migrants as voters but the court did not make a finding on this claim although the court mentioned the fact that the district officer was detained under the Internal Security Act in July 1988 for 60 days and placed under restricted residence for two years after that.

Another piece of evidence related to JPN's role in issuing several temporary ICs based on one police report of a lost IC. Information on the seven temporary ICs with different numbers issued to different persons based on that single police report (No. 2429/98) was tendered in court.

The EC voter registration officer gave evidence that he merely recorded, as is the rule, a voter based on the ICs or temporary ICs issued by JPN.

JPN was not a party to the Likas election petition and the court did not make any ruling on JPN's role.

As JPN is a government department it may be more suspect to manipulation in which case interested parties with knowledge of irregularities of ICs in the electoral roll should also lodge reports with the police and the Anti-Corruption Agency.

Let us hope that unlike the situation in the Likas case where nothing was done upon these reports, something will be done. There is always the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and of course civil society approaches if the former fails to live up to expectations.

Still parliamentarians should raise questions on the role and power of the EC in relation to JPN and scrutinise any involvement by officers in both in relation to phantom voters.

I think there are so many ways yet 'undiscovered' of how a phantom voter come into being. Case law is related to the facts brought to the court's attention by parties themselves.