Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah will file a suit at the High Court to temporarily halt the Election Commission's (EC) redelineation exercise, citing the alleged lack of information provided in its Sept 14 redelineation proposal.

Maria, who resides in Petaling Jaya Utara (PJU), will raise a constitutional challenge for her own constituency after collecting 100 signatures from PJU voters.

She hopes to file the suit in court on Friday.

Under the redelineation exercise, the EC is also proposing a new seat, Damansara, which will encompass the PJU seat with more than 150,000 voters.

"EC must recognise the importance of land mass (information) which it didn't give us (in the proposal)," she told a press conference at Bersih's headquarters in Petaling Jaya.

"Various grounds - local ties, administrative boundary and equal representation - cited by us (in our objection), depends on the land mass," she said.
 
"We can't tell where exactly the boundaries are, what we have is only the estimation. Without this information, we will not know (the exact) impact of the redelineation," she explained.

Maria said she wanted the court to determine if the redelineation exercise is done in accordance to the Federal Constitution.

The constitution states that "the number of electors within each constituency in a state ought to be approximately equal".

Meanwhile, Bersih treasurer Thomas Fann urged the public to utilise the 529 objection letters prepared and uploaded online to file their own protest.

The initiative is by Bersih's special taskforce, Delineation Action & Research Team (Dart).

The 529 letters were drafted based on analyses done on each state constituency and parliamentary seat, he said.

"Dart has done its analyses and produced digital maps to make it easy for the public (to protest)," he said.

He called for the voters to download the objection letters, gather 110 signatories in their respective constituencies and submit their objections to the state EC before Oct 14, the deadline for objections.

"You can make the necessary amendments in the objection letters too as you know your own constituency," said Wong Chin Huat, a Bersih committee member.

Bersih will provide technical support for these voters if the EC conducts a hearing to hear their protest, added the political scientist.

"In our analyses, there are 59 federal constituencies that are more than 15 percent above their state average and 134 state seats that are under-represented," added Fann.

"This clearly violates the principle of 'one person one vote one value' as intended in our constitution," he said.

Bersih also noted that the proposed redelineation will see several seats take over local authorities, which may violate the constitution which stresses "local ties" in the excercise, according to Fann.

The objection letters and other information can be found at http://dart.bersih.org.