Former parliamentary select committee (PSC) for electoral reform member Anthony Loke has urged the Election Commission (EC) to drop the requirement that an overseas voter must spend at least 30 days in Malaysia over the past five years in order to be eligible to be a postal voter.

He said the requirement is “unfair and unreasonable” because it would exclude many Malaysian expatriates, such as those returning only for holidays.

“What we have agreed upon is that they must come back once every five years. Even that, we have debated it during the PSC meeting.

azlan “In the end, the three members from Pakatan Rakyat compromised and agreed to the condition that in order to be an overseas voter, they must come back every five years, but there is no length stated.

“Thirty days over five years is a condition imposed by EC and this is something that is unreasonable,” he said at a press conference today.

The Rasah MP said the condition should be dropped if the EC is serious about allowing overseas voters to vote.

“(Returning) once every five years is enough,” he said.

Meanwhile, DAP election strategist Ong Kian Ming questioned whether the Immigration Department has the resources to handle checks requested by the EC.

He said it is “a big hassle” to check the number of days that each applicant has stayed in Malaysia, as opposed to merely checking if they were in Malaysia some time over the past five years.

Only two months before dissolution

Loke also raised issue with the fact that there are only about two months before the Parliament’s dissolution is widely anticipated and registration closes.

He urged the EC to give its commitment to process and approve all eligible applicants and provide their names to election candidates on nomination day along with the usual electoral roll.

This is to enable candidates to check whether the electoral roll is in order, such as whether those registered for postal voting have been removed from the list of normal voters.

In addition, Ong asked the EC to allow representatives from political parties to act as polling agents at embassies at during the ballot sorting process at the EC’s office in Putrajaya.

He said the EC has previously objected to have candidate’s representatives observing the process as that would mean having hundreds of observers at each embassy.

But if there are only political parties’ representatives, there would about 10 observers, said Ong, which is more practical.

“If we do not have the assurance (that the electoral process is closely monitored), overseas voters would fear overseas voters would be manipulated along the way.

“This means the EC’s initiative would not be as effective as what it and political parties want,” he said.

He added that DAP had already received many queries from expatriates on whether their votes would be safe.

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