Respectable 70pct voter turnout as of 4pm

GE15 | Some 70 percent of voters have cast their ballots as of 4pm today, according to the Election Commission (EC).

This was mentioned in the hourly turnout updates given by the commission on Twitter. The EC has yet to release the turnout at 5pm and 6pm.

The electoral roll being used for GE15 contains a total of 21,173,638 electors, comprising 20,853,681 ordinary voters, 146,737 army personnel and their spouses, 118,794 police personnel, including from the General Operations Forces, and their spouses and 2,741 absentee electors.

This means that about 14.8 million Malaysians have already voted as of 4pm, with another two hours to go until polling closes. At the last general election in 2018, a total of 12.3 million people voted out of 14.9 million registered voters (82.3 percent turnout).

However, there are 5.8 million new voters in this general election, largely due to the lowering of the voting age to 18 and the implementation of automatic registration of voters.

Based on Bernama's survey, the voting process is going smoothly nationwide with voters observing the standard operating procedures (SOP) set by the EC, including not bringing their mobile phones into the polling station.

The EC and security personnel are also on hand to assist electors at the polling stations with various facilities made available to ensure smooth polling, including wheelchairs used by EC personnel to facilitate the movement of the elderly and disabled.

The EC is also providing shuttle service at selected polling centres, especially at places where electors have to park their vehicles far away.

Polling for the 15th general election (GE15) officially started at 7.30am in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan, while in Peninsular Malaysia the polling centres were opened at 8am.

Also held simultaneously is polling for the Bugaya state by-election in Sabah, which was postponed due to the proclamation of emergency to contain the spread of Covid-19.

- Bernama

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