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Bersih calls for vigilance in observing early and postal voting process

GE14 | Electoral watchdog Bersih has called on the Election Commission (EC) to reveal the total number of registered postal voters in each constituency to improve transparency of the early and postal voting process.

In making the call, Bersih executive director Yap Swee Seng said all candidates should also be more vigilant to observe the early polling on May 5.

"This is important because manipulation and fraud through early voting and postal voting can decide the outcome of the 14th general election, particularly in the marginal seats," Yap told a press conference at Bersih's office in Petaling Jaya this morning.

"In the last 13th general election, there were many candidates who did not assign polling and counting agents to observe the early and postal voting process," he said.

As such, Yap said Bersih has compiled a list of 20 seats with the highest number of registered early voters, as well as a general guideline for candidates to observe the process.

According to Bersih, the Setiawangsa parliament seat has the highest percentage of early voters with 24.19 percent, or 17,450 out of its total 72,136 registered voters.

Other seats in the top five are Lumut (17.74 percent), Tangga Batu (14.14 percent), Lembah Pantai (12.8 percent) and Port Dickson or formerly known as Telok Kemang (9.44 percent).

The EC had previously announced that there were 300,255 early voters registered to cast their ballots on May 5, comprising police personnel and their spouses, as well as army personnel and their spouses.

While Bersih had campaigned for the abolishment of the postal voting system, Yap also said that the EC had last year instead expanded the eligibility to include nine new categories of civil servants.

Referring to the EC's announcement that there are 3,653 eligible international postal voters in this GE14, Yap pointed out that the number of domestic postal voters has always remained unclear and could be subjected to last-minute manipulations.

As such, Yap said Bersih had made recommendations that included all candidates being provided with a list of eligible postal voters in their seat in order to improve transparency of the process.

'We have told Maria'

Bersih acting chairperson Shahrul Aman Mohd Saari, meanwhile, said that even his predecessor and PKR candidate for Petaling Jaya, Maria Chin, had been reminded about the election offence of putting up party flags before the official campaign period that starts tomorrow.

"We told her it is not right," said Shahrul when asked for comments on PKR flags spotted around Petaling Jaya since earlier this week, despite it being an election offence to campaign before nominations day.

At the same time, he insisted that the EC should have played a role to instruct the local councils to act against all political parties caught flouting its rules.

Maria herself yesterday said it was ironic that an election offence was committed in her constituency although it was not directly put up by her team.

Section 24B(4) of the Election Offences Act 1954 stipulates that campaign materials can only be exhibited during the campaigning period, which begins after nomination day (April 28) and ends on polling day (May 9).

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