Electoral reforms pressure group Bersih has accused the Election Commission (EC) of voter registration irregularities by using Department of Special Affairs (Jasa) personnel as registrars.

Since the last general election in 2013, the EC had stopped agents from NGOs and political parties to act as as assistant registration officers (ARO).

However, Jasa personnel are still allowed to act as ARO to register voters.

At a press conference today, Bersih claimed that a check on the Johor EC website showed that 35 out of 52 AROs either had direct links with the BN or BN-linked NGOs such as Perkasa and Gerakan Belia 4B.

"Furthermore, the AROs listed on the Malacca EC website were only those from Umno and another BN component party, the Indian Progressive Front (IPF)," Bersih secretariat advocacy and education officer Zoe Randhawa said today.

Randhawa said that allowing Jasa employees who are ruling party members as AROs to register voters and denying NGOs and opposition parties members to be AROs has put a big question mark on the EC's credibility and integrity.

Jasa is a propaganda unit under the Communications and Multimedia Ministry.

Meanwhile, the latest findings by the Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project (Merap) show that a disproportionate number of Malay voters had been registered during the third quarter of 2014.

Disproportionate increase

Randhawa said the research had shown that this had a significant impact on 13 seats in Pahang, Perak, Selangor, Johor and Kuala Lumpur that were won with small margins.

"In Perak, Malays comprised 78 percent of the new voters in first quarter to third quarter 2014 whereas they only constitute 48 percent of the total number of voters in the state in GE13.

"On the other hand, the Chinese comprised only 10.3 percent of the new voters, against 37.7 percent of the total number of voters in the state in GE13," she said.

In Negeri Sembilan, the new voters were 83 percent Malay and eight percent Chinese, while in GE13, Malay voters made up 53 percent and Chinese voters 30.3 percent.

Randhawa said that the EC must explain why the number of new Malay voters are disproportionate.

 

"I think BN actually believes now that the Chinese have abandoned BN, that if it goes back to Chinese to ask for their votes, they will not get.

"So, it will be safer for Umno, it it wants to survive,  to go back to the Malay voters," Bersih deputy chairperson Sarajun Hoda said.

Meanwhile, Bersih secretariat manager Mandeep Singh urged the EC to restore the practice of political parties and NGOs being appointed as AROs for voter registration.

"Better still, anyone over 21 should be automatically registered as voters," Mandeep said.