The Election Commission (EC) is looking into the possibility of replacing postal voting with an early voting system to ease the procedures for the voters in the next general election, EC chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof ( below ) said.

NONE He said the EC was in the midst of studying the matter because the existing postal voting procedures were very technical as postal voters were requested to send their forms in Envelope B and the ballots in Envelope A to the returning officer's office by 5pm on the polling day.

"We will also look into the possibility of using the early voting system at the Sarawak state election," he told a press conference here today.

The proposal, however, would not involve postal voters abroad, he said.

Distractions caused Sibu delay 

Meanwhile, Abdul Aziz refuted allegations that postal ballots returned during the Sibu parliamentary by-election on May 16, surpassed the number of the ballots issued for postal voters, hence, causing the delay in the vote counting process.

Abdul Aziz said of the 2,827 ballots issued to postal voters, only 2,637 were returned as of 5pm, on polling day.     

    

The delay in vote counting process was merely due to the distractions from outside the room, he said.     

    

On the accusation that there were phantom voters detected on polling day, he said they were actually district officers who were delivering the postal votes to the returning officer's office.     

 

"They cannot cast a vote because only the registered voters are allowed to do so," he said.

- Bernama