Claims of phantom voters surface again

As many as 60 voters are sharing the same address in a housing estate in Bukit Selambau and this gravely worries PKR.

The party's deputy youth chief Fariz Musa said this was a clear sign of the existence of phantom voters in the constituency.

He further claimed that PKR found 2,215 doubtful or phantom voters in the same housing estate in Taman Bandar Baru Bangi.

He said that the housing estate has a total of 3,544 registered voters and the doubtful voters make up of about 63 percent of the total number of voters in this particular locality.

"We use the Sistem Menang Pilihan Raya (Sismep) software which found that up to 60 voters are living in one house in the housing scheme," he told reporters in Sungai Petani today.

He also said that checks using the software discovered that people (voters) of various races were living under one roof.

Fariz added that they found Malay voters and Siamese voters staying together in the same address, just like Indians and Chinese voters too in the same address.

He said that his team has detected 76 houses so far in the one housing estate.

Their checks were based on the addresses of voters as per the voting list released by the Election Commission.

He urged the Election Commission (EC) to take immediate action to clean the electoral roll.

Fariz added that PKR Youth was only checking on one housing estate and would merge the results of all the studies on phantom and doubtful voters before handing it over to the EC.

"Later today we will go to the house that we detected to contain the phantom and doubtful voters for verification before sending the protest memorandum to the EC," he said.

PKR's S Manikumar ( photo ) will be facing BN/MIC's S Ganesan and 13 other independents for the state seat on April 7.

And in Bukit Gantang...

Meanwhile, in Bukit Gantang, Wanita Umno has discovered that more than 5,000 voters have gone missing and want the party to trace them before the by-election.

Former Wanita Umno chief Rafidah Aziz was reported to have said that the movement's machinery was unable to get in touch with these voters.

"We have done everything possible to find out where they are, but to no avail. We hope the party headquarters will be able to help us by tracing them through the party registration.

"These voters are crucial for us to ensure the Barisan Nasional candidate wins," she said yesterday.

She added the movement's machinery has also identified more than 4,000 voters who were working outside Perak, adding that efforts were under way to ensure they would come back to cast their votes on polling day.

In Bukit Gantang, Umno's Ismail Saffian will be facing PAS' Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin and independent candidate Kamarul Ramizu Idris on April 7.