DAP: Polling staff forced to register as postal voters

VIDEO | 0.55 min

DAP today claimed that 240,000 government servants serving as Election Commission (EC) polling centre staff nationwide have been told that it is compulsory for them to register as postal voters in the coming polls.

"I received information from teachers who attended an EC briefing for polling centre staff on new regulations with far-reaching implications," said assistant national publicity secretary Teo Nie Ching in Balakong today.

"Whereas during the last GE they could go out from their respective polling centres to vote in their area, now they are not allowed to do so, and are forced to register as postal voters," she said.

However, they were told that they can still leave their posts to take their meals and for the Muslim employees to perform prayers.

The briefing for polling centre staff for the Serdang parliamentary constituency, related Teo ( left ), was held on Jan 7 early this year at a hall near Bangi.

During the briefing, Teo alleged that the teachers complained they had been told by the EC officers briefing them that they must register as postal voters, as the commission cannot allow them to go out to vote on polling day to ensure polling centres are fully staffed at all times.

'Advance voting more transparent'

Teo, who is also the Serdang MP, is worried that the 240,000 postal votes may lead to voting fraud, citing a lack of transparency in the postal voting process.

    

She urged the EC to make the polling centre staff advance voters instead, as the process of advance voting is more transparent and can be monitored by polling agents from political parties.

The teachers, she said, are worried that their votes may be traced in postal voting, and that they may be penalised if they don't vote for the BN.

They also expressed worry that their postal ballots may be exchanged as there is no monitoring involved, Teo stressed.

When quizzed on the 240,000 figure for EC staff allegedly forced to register as postal voters, Teo clarified that this is based on the Bangi briefing and it is what the teachers from Serdang have been informed by the EC officials.

She said the EC will have to clarify the information from their officers, and hopefully address the worries of the teachers.

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat has continued to poke at the credibility of the EC in matters such as postal voting - which they claim lack transparency - alleging that it has led to voting fraud.

In an immediate response, the EC has denied Teo's allegations, calling the party “a liar”.

"DAP is lying. What is the truth, is that the EC encouraged its presiding officers to appoint election officials from locals who can vote in the constituency that they are serving in," its chairperson Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof told Malaysiakini .

Register 'as and when necessary'

He explained that the commission's officers will only ask polling centre staff to register as postal voters, “as and when necessary”.

"Only when they have no other choice, should the presiding officer appoint outsiders, and these (candidates) can apply to be postal voters."

In a separate matter, Abdul Aziz ( right ) also added that Malaysians abroad who have failed to register as overseas voters after the midnight deadline must come back to vote in the 13th general election, as the EC does not have the power to change the deadline it gazetted.

"With regards to the deadline (for overseas voter registration) of 12 midnight on the day of the Parliament’s dissolution, the law states that there cannot be any extension to the original time as it has already been gazetted," he said.

 

The EC chief advised those who have failed to register before the deadline to look to themselves and ask why it happened that way, and return home to vote.