Polling stations in rural areas to close early

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KOTA KINABALU: The director of the Elections Commission, Datuk Md Idrus Ismail, said some polling stations in the rural constituencies will close as early as 12.00pm in the next 13th general election owing to the small number of voters.

Datuk Md Idrus Ismail

He cited places like Jambongan Utara in Beluran which has about 299 voters and Anungai in Sugut with 173 voters as examples.

“There is no point to close these polling stations at the same time like the other places because of the small number of voters. We will implement this system in order to save time for the counting of votes which will be done as soon the stations are closed.

“In the next general election, the counting process will be carried out at the polling stations as soon as voting closes. Counting will be done in the presence of polling agents and we will issue them with Borang 14 so as to enable them to report to their own operation centres,” Md Idrus said.

He said this to The Borneo Post after receiving a courtesy call from a delegation comprising of members of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) of Kota Kinabalu division led by the divisional chief Christina Liew.

Md Idrus said, the reason for counting the votes at the polling stations is because of comments and complaints received by the commission from political parties accusing the commission of adding or reducing ballot papers while in transit to the counting centres.

“For some rural areas in the State, we had to transport the ballot papers to the counting centres, but we will change this method to ensure transparency.

“The next time, we will count the ballots at the polling stations with all the agents to witness the process,” he added.

According to Md Idrus, there are 1,160,800 Sabahans eligible to vote with only 848,473 having registered as voters. 312,338 or 26.9 per cent are unregistered.