Despite complaints of the appearance of dubious voters at polling stations today, Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof maintains that the names on the electoral roll are all citizens and hence legal voters.

“There are no dubious voters in our list. We have linked our electoral rolls with the National Registration Department (NRD).

NONE “This is to make sure that all name in the electoral list are citizens. NRD has reported to use that all the names on our list are citizens,” Aziz told a press conference at Putrajaya EC headquarters this afternoon.

This morning, DAP Cheras parliamentary candidate Tan Kok Wai said voters at Sekolah Kebangsaan Taman Segar caught a suspicious foreign-looking man who tried to vote at 9am.

Tan said the suspect produced his MyKad to prove that he is a Malaysian, but a member of the public said he does not believe him and handed the man to the police.   

'Don't judge voters by their appearance'

Aziz said members of the public should not judge voters by their appearance.

“But some of the citizend may look like Bangladeshid, Afghans, Japanese, whatever, but they are citizens as long as they come with (blue) MyKad.”

He added that as long as the person possesses a MyKad and is in the electoral roll, the person can cast the ballot.

However, the EC chief’s explanation does not address earlier allegations that foreigners had been given ICs illegally to enable them to vote.

On Friday, incumbent Klang MP Charles Santiago said he had discovered hundreds of names in the Klang electoral roll that are identical to the list of illegal voters presented at the Sabah royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into the illegal immigrants issue.

NONE Meanwhile, Aziz showed his inked left index finger to rebut clauims that indelible ink used on the index fingers of voters' could be washed off easily.

He said he used soap to wash the finger after voting in Shah Alam, but the water used to wash contained only a little blue ink.

As long as the procedure is followed, he added, there would no problem with the use of the indelible ink.

Stolen MyKads blamed

Asked about the complaints of some voters that they could not vote because other people had already voted using their names, Aziz urged them to file police reports.

“Maybe your friend lost the MyKad before and it is being abused. This is my speculation,” he said.

He said such complaints do not occur frequently, adding that as at noon, no complaint of an election offence had been received.

And, despite the EC having ruled that a pen must be used to mark the vote on the ballot paper, Aziz said ballots marked with a pencil are also acceptable as long as the voter’s intention was recognised.

He also hoped that the turnout for GE13 could exceed 80 percent.