Exorcise phantom voters before rolling out auto voter registration, gov't told
As Putrajaya opts for automatic voter registration, parties have urged for the integrity of the electoral roll to be addressed in light of long-standing allegations of ‘phantom voters’, especially in Sabah.
At an EC forum today, Upko secretary-general Nelson Anggang questioned what steps ought to be taken to clean the roll before implementing the new system...
As Putrajaya opts for automatic voter registration, parties have urged for the integrity of the electoral roll to be addressed in light of long-standing allegations of ‘phantom voters’, especially in Sabah.
At an EC forum today, Upko secretary-general Nelson Anggang questioned what steps ought to be taken to clean the roll before implementing the new system.
“We in Sabah worry about phantom voters. Our worries will never subside because, in 2012, a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) recorded for the first time in Sabah’s history, the problem of undocumented migrants (being able to vote).
“But the solution, until today, has not been presented,” Anggang said.
Held during the former BN administration, the RCI on Immigrants in Sabah heard that there had been two rounds of “Project IC” in the 1990s when Sabah National Registration Department officers illegally issued blue identity cards to tens of thousands of immigrants.
Many of the immigrants later registered as voters and were strategically planted into marginal constituencies to help BN defeat PBS.
The report implicated no political parties and blamed the operations on corrupt government officials.
In response to Anggang’s question, Ayer Hitam MP Wee Ka Siong believed that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had an answer to the problem as the operations had occurred during his first tenure as premier.
“It was Mahathir’s project so you need Mahathir’s solution,” he said.
Government backbencher Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad agreed that all electoral roll data needed to be consolidated and verified before the new system could be put in place.
Meanwhile, fellow panellist and PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan acknowledged the long-standing issue and questioned why the roll was not cleaned up before automatic voter registration was tabled in Parliament.
At a press conference afterwards, EC chief Azhar Azizan Harun appealed for patience in the implementation of automatic voter registration as the commission first needed to clean up the electoral roll, among other procedures.
He also announced that a committee had been set up to look into issues relating to the roll.
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