Mafrel: EC electoral roll out of date

Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) revealed today that the electoral rolls prepared by the Election Commission is close to out of date, giving opportunities for phantom voters.

“From a electoral roll verification (ERV) exercise conducted in three by-election areas, Mafrel found that the regularly disputed electoral rolls prepared by the EC has almost reached its expiry date,” said the NGO's northern region director, Ong Boon Keong.

“The roll fails to provide full addresses for huge chunks of voters in a 1 to 20 ratio, fails to clean up dead voters leaving about 100 suspected dead voters in each constituency, fails to provide more than half the voters' house numbers, and failed to sign up one third of eligible voters,” said Ong.

In view of these chronic long-term failures, Ong called upon the EC to opt for automatic registration based on the National Registration Department (NRD) database and abandon the “costly” voters registration exercise.

Electoral roll significantly compromised

“By doing this, the EC can uphold the voting rights of all citizens, while also creating significant savings for the country,” said Ong.

According to Mafrel's ERV results, there are about 65 percent voters with house numbers but without full addresses in Bukit Selambau located mainly in Taman Bandar Baru and Taman Peruda.

Mafrel's methodology also involves field checks.

Ong said there are 78 voters in Bukit Selambau approximately aged 90 years and above or born on/or before 1918.

“Despite various pronouncements to clean up the electoral rolls, the EC seems to be never serious to get rid of the dead voters in its rolls, which could number over 100 in each constituency,” he said.

Because of this, the electoral rolls are significantly compromised in its inadequacy to assist candidates who need accurate data on the voters within their constituency.

“Moreover, it opens the door for vote frauds as it allows phantom voters to exploit the election process,” said Ong.