GE14 | A standoff occurred at SRK Taman Dato' Harun (1) this evening as some 26 voters in the queue outside the polling centre were prevented from casting their ballots after the 5pm closing time.

A team of 13 FRU personnel and 20 police officers were deployed to stand guard inside the school gates since 6pm, according to sources on the ground.

Malaysiakini understands that another group of some 26 voters already inside the school ground - a voting centre for the Petaling Jaya parliament and Taman Medan state seat - demanded to be allowed to vote.

One of the voters, Nor Intan Mohd Nor, 42, told Malaysiakini that she arrived at the polling station at 2pm .

Meanwhile, some 250 voters, who have already voted, stood outside the school gate, to provide support. 

Maria Chin Abdullah, who is Pakatan Harapan's candidate for the Petaling Jaya seat, arrived with a lawyer. 

Maria then called the returning officer to ask him to consider giving 30 minutes more for the voters to cast their votes before the counting process started. 

She promised that everyone will leave the school compound after they are allowed to vote.

However, the returning officer rejected the request as the polling time was over, according to Maria. The voters then left the polling station, disappointed.

Later, Maria and Syamsul Firdaus Mohamed Supri (Harapan candidate for Taman Medan) told the voters that they will lodge a police report and challenge the EC in court.

The two candidates will also start a petition and send the results to the EC, said Syamsul.

“We are not here to create any conflict. We will take down the information of every voter whose rights were denied and we will lodge a police report and start a petition. ”

The voters were encouraged to leave their information before leaving the polling station so that the next course of action can be taken.

“We don’t want any confrontation now, but we will challenge EC at court. We won’t give up this chance. We will not allow the EC to do this again,” added Maria Chin.

The crowd gathered outside the school dispersed about 8.30pm peacefully.

According to Mahharul Ismail, who is the PKR campaign manager for Taman Medan, there were about a hundred voters, left behind at 5pm and some of them had left earlier.

He added that there were 648 voters in the fourth polling stream. He questioned why the EC had put so many voters in one stream, which Pakatan Rakyat had won big in 2013.

“In the last election, we won in the third and fourth polling streams, and we lost in the first and second streams. I think that is why they put so many voters in one stream.”

“We only have nine hours of polling time, but they put 648 voters in one stream! ” said Mahharul.