Conspiracy theories have been bandied about in the aftermath of the Hulu Selangor by-election, with one of the claims being that there were 65 more votes than voters.

There has been muted chatter about discrepancies in the tally since polling day, but the situation came to a head after Sin Chew Daily ran a report today on the ‘excess’ votes.

azlan Based on the figure released to the media by the EC last Sunday evening, 48,935 voters had cast their ballots when polling stations closed at 5pm.

When this was compared to the voter turnout, the figure just didn't add up.

Winner P Kamalanathan of BN took 24,997 votes, PKR's Zaid Ibrahim obtained 23,272 votes and there were 731 spoilt votes - making a total of 49,000.

EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof, when contacted, clarified that the voter turnout was only an estimate.

Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof “What we announced at 9.15pm (on Sunday) was the official figure that we gazetted. The earlier figure was just an estimate, and it wasn't that far off either. There is nothing serious about that (65-vote discrepancy)," he said.

PKR director of strategy Tian Chua said there could be bigger issues to tackle beyond the confusion of the ‘extra’ votes.

He said there is strong suspicion that at least a few hundred voters were transferred out of their constituency or that their names were dropped from the electoral roll.

tian chua 02 "We haven't really discussed the matter yet, but we will have a meeting tomorrow when our election committee will present its report," he said.

BN’s P Kamalanathan wrested the parliamentary seat back from PKR, which had fielded former Umno strongman Zaid Ibrahim.