KUCHING: The Election Commission (EC) has urged Malaysians overseas to apply for postal voting to exercise their voting rights in the coming general election.
In making the call yesterday, EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the commission had received about 2,655 applications for postal voting as of 4pm, Monday.
Out of the total, 2,636 are being processed while the remaining 19 have been rejected for not fulfilling the requirements, he told a press conference after officiating at a briefing for election returning officers and team leaders at Hilton Hotel here.
He assured that EC was not politically influenced in rejecting those who failed to qualify: “The rules and regulations that we set are universal with other countries. If one does not agree with the condition for postal voting, they should fly back home to vote.”
The applications were made from 105 countries with Australia registering the biggest number of postal vote applicants at 618. The other top 10 countries are United Kingdom at 473, followed by United States (203), China (151), Qatar (124), United Arab Emirates (102), Saudi Arabia (90), Germany (81), New Zealand (74) and Japan with 59 applicants.
“Among the requirements to be eligible for postal voting is that applicants must have returned to the country for a minimum of 30 days in the past five years from the period that parliament was dissolved.
“We hope that the number of applicants will increase to encourage Malaysians residing overseas to vote. The postal votes will be sent to the respective consulates where applicants could cast their votes straight away.
“Postal votes will be open on polling day in front of the respective returning officers and representatives of the candidates,”
Also present was state EC director Datu Takun Sunggah.
Abdul Aziz added that the media fraternity, election workers and enforcement officers on duty were also eligible for postal voting.
The chairman also disclosed that there were about 2,600 absentee voters, most of whom were students and government officials who were overseas.
He assured that they would be able to vote through the post.
On initiatives taken by many NGOs to voluntarily train the public and election workers on the election process, Abdul Aziz voiced his concern that certain parties were giving misleading and contradictory tips.
He cited cases of people being advised to make enquiries with their respective political parties on voting matters on polling day but EC prohibited any political party from setting up booths near the polling centre.
“When entering the polling centre, voters must accept whatever voting slip handed to them provided it is not tampered with.
“Voters have the right to ask the officers if their voting slip is tampered with any kind of writing whatsoever. Do note that all voting slips will have serial number to ensure that the slip is only used at that particular centre and will not end up at a different ballot box,” he continued.
Abdul Aziz assured that the slip cannot be traced because voters will not be given slips in sequence to their registration numbers.
He added that those whose names were at the top of the list could end up with voting slip numbers which probably began from the middle or even at the back of the pile, depending on when he arrived to vote.