PUTRAJAYA: The Election Commission (EC) will remove from the electoral roll 12,000 names of voters aged 90 and above effective immediately.
EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the decision was made jointly by EC and the National Registration Department (NRD) recently as those in the age group hardly dealt with the NRD anymore, or had either died or been stripped of Malaysian citizenship.
Speaking to reporters before breaking fast with the EC staff here yesterday, Abdul Aziz, however, said those in the group wishing to cast their vote in the next general election could contact the EC to have their names reinstated should the names had been removed from the roll.
In other development, Abdul Aziz refuted the opposition’s allegation that the EC had registered names of foreigners as voters to double up the number of voters in the electoral roll.
“There is no electoral roll in any country in the world that is 100 per cent accurate. We have 12.3 million voters, so we have to be very careful so that we will not make mistakes.
“Sometimes, errors occurred due to technical glitch or maybe overlapping of names, but we will not leave the names there and will clean the roll through the Agency Link-up System (ALIS),” said the EC chairman who will convene a meeting with the NRD next week to find solutions to the problem.
ALIS is an exclusive online system linking the EC headquarters and its branches with the NRD.
On the preparation to face the next general election, Abdul Aziz said the EC was prepared to hold it at any time. — Bernama