The Election Commission (EC) must step up its voter registration exercise to ensure more eligible Malaysians register themselves as voters, DAP said today.

The opposition party is disappointed that less than 15 per cent of the total number of eligible Malaysians have registered as voters after EC launched the exercise about one year ago.

220,000 registrations but...

In a statement today, DAP national publicity assistant secretary John Chung said that the party was informed by the EC at a dialogue with the party's youth wing on April 26 that about 220,000 Malaysians had registered as voters but the figures is still "very low".

"Although the number of new registrations would have gone up slightly in the past two months, the overall rate in which the voter registration exercise is progressing is still too slow in view of the fast approaching general election," he said.

"If we were to take the figure of 220,000 registrations at 640 post offices nationwide over the past ten months we will arrive at the abysmally low ratio of one registration at each post office daily," Chung said.

The general election is due in November next year.

Urban dwellers

According to figures released by the EC, about 1.7 million eligible Malaysians aged 21 and above have yet to register as voters and a large majority from this group are urban dwellers.

Chung added that many people were not aware that the registration could be done at post offices nationwide.

"There is clearly a need for the EC and Pos Malaysia to increase public awareness and embark on

publicity campaigns through the media and newspapers to attract more young people to register as voters," he said.

Chung urged those who have yet to register as voters to do so quickly in order to avoid the incident during the last general election where some 680,000 new voters were prevented from voting.