PAS Gombak candidate Dr Hatta Ramli will be lodging a police report over incidents where thousands who arrived at several polling stations in Gombak were denied the right to vote after being told that their names were not listed in the electoral list.

Calling the situation shameful, the PAS leader said the Election Commission (EC) must take responsibility for the chaos which has resulted in a poor turnout in the constituency.

"I checked a polling station in Taman Greenwood at 1pm and was told that only 526 people were able to vote. That means only nine percent from the more than 14,000 voters. This is terrible! Even if the number doubles in the afternoon, it would still be very poor," he told a press conference at PAS headquarters in Taman Melewar, Gombak.

He advised those who were unable to vote to lodge an official complaint against the EC over a shoddy job.

"It does not matter if they are Umno or PAS supporters, they should lodge a complaint. The whole situation undermines the democratic process where legal and registered voters are unable to vote because of their incompetency," he said

"Furthermore, such a situation would demean the credibility of the polls conducted. The results would be questionable."

Asked if he would challenge the results, Hatta said he was unsure if there is a provision under the election laws to allow him to do so.

"Can we protest just because of poor turnout? I am not too clear on the issue at this point," he said.

Earlier today, voters contacted malaysiakini complaining that they were turned away after their names were not found in the electoral list.

Problems in Templer

Hatta who is also contesting for the Templer state seat, said he received complaints that voters' names were missing from the list referred to the EC agents at their respective streams.

"But when they checked earlier at the EC computer system, their names were there. So I don't understand why the EC did not streamline the electoral list," he said.

"Voters are also frustrated that the returning office cannot redirect them to other streams as they are responsible for one stream only and have no knowledge about other streams.

"In the end, the officers stopped referring to the computer list and relied on the hard copy but by that time the damage had been done."

Hatta claimed that the problems may have been caused by the shortage of time in preparing for the election.

"It's obvious that this is a rush job. The question is who was responsible in rushing the EC to conduct this election when it had 60 days (after Parliament was dissolved) to fix the polling date. Why rush when they are not ready for the election?" Hatta asked.

However, he also said he was aware that EC officials themselves were surprised with the massive glitches.

"I saw the EC secretary (Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, photo ) saying on television that the whole situation was shameful...he said 'sorry', but that's not enough," he said.

Hatta also questioned the absence of EC officers at the affected polling stations.

"When we asked the officers there, they kept saying that they are not EC employers, that they are only agents. All this only frustrates the voters even more," he added..