PUTRAJAYA: Come out in the morning to vote and do not forget to bring along your identity card.
That’s what the Election Commission (EC) wants all the 13.34 million eligible voters to do on polling day tomorrow in Malaysia’s 13th general election.
EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the weatherman had predicted fine weather in the morning but thunderstorms in some states in the afternoon. Voters who have moved and changed their address on the identity card with the National Registration Department but had not applied for a change in their polling centre were still eligible to vote, he told a news conference at the EC headquarters, here.
“The law states clearly that voting is based on the registration of a voter, whereby the name of the voter remains in the register and the polling centre would be changed only after he or she applied to the EC to do so. Such voters can check to verify their polling centre,” he said.
Abdul Aziz advised voters against being influenced by certain quarters into parting with their ballot papers on the pretext of ensuring the confidentiality of their vote.
“The EC wishes to stress that the vote is secret and the EC clerk is not authorised to place any mark on the ballot paper or against the name on the electoral roll.
“The EC clerk does not know who is waiting in queue to vote and the voters do not come according to the sequence of names in the electoral roll,” he said.
He explained that the serial number was to facilitate verification by the EC clerk of the number of ballot papers in a book of 50 sheets. Abdul Aziz advised elderly people against being deceived into having their finger marked with ink before going to vote as only the EC clerk at the polling centre could do that.
He said the clerk would check the left index finger of a voter to ensure that there was no ink mark before marking the finger with the indelible ink.
“If a voter refused to allow his or her finger to be marked with the ink, then no ballot paper would be issued,” he said.
Advising voters not to surrender their identity cards to anyone, Abdul Aziz said that if a voter found that his or her ballot paper had been smudged by the indelible ink, he or she could request a replacement from the presiding officer.
“However, the presiding officer has to be satisfied that the ballot paper was not intentionally defaced,” he said. — Bernama #myvote13 #ge13