EC denies permanent residents enlisted as voters

The Election Commission has denied permanent residents (PR) have been registered as voters, saying that the cases exposed yesterday could be a result of technical negligence on the part of the National Registration Department (NRD).

"I think the list of PR names in the NRD's website was the old one and not updated," said EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof (left) in a text message to Malaysiakini late last night.

Abdul Aziz was responding to the controversy that PRs had been registered as voters in the latest draft supplementary electoral rolls and their status were 'upgraded' to citizen in just a few hours, according to the NRD online verification system.

He reiterated that only Malaysian citizens can apply to register as voters.

"PRs are not allowed unless the Home Ministry has approved their application as Malaysian citizens. Otherwise their application to register as voters will be automatically rejected by (the) EC screening system after checking their status with NRD Agency Link-Up System (Alis)," he said.

However, Abdul Aziz stressed that EC will continue to display the quarterly supplementary electoral rolls to the public for a period of one week.

"The voters of that area can object (if they found any irregularity)," he added.

Yesterday morning,Malaysiakinireported that the NRD online verification system confirmed a voter registered in the Selangor state constituency of Ijok was a PR-holder with a MyPR card.

However, a second check after four hours found that the voter named "Mismah" had become a citizen with a Mykad.

Members of Islamist party PAS informedMalaysiakiniyesterday that they also had discovered the same situation. In their case, however, as many as 52 voters who were PR-holders in the morning had, by around 3pm yesterday, become Malaysian citizens.

The 52 voters found in the latest draft supplementary electoral rolls, which is currently on public display, are registered in six parliamentary constituencies in Kuala Lumpur, which were won by the opposition in the last general election.

Continuously raised, consistently denied

Malaysiakini has conveyed the matter to the NRD, but has yet to recieve a response.

According to election laws, the EC updates the electoral roll every three months with a quarterly draft supplementary electoral roll.

The names of all newly-registered voters, voters who have changed their residential addresses and voters who have been removed from the electoral roll, make up the list in the draft supplementary electoral roll.

The roll is then displayed, usually for one week, for public scrutiny, before it is gazetted and used in the next election.

During the display period, members of the public can raise their objections to the names listed in the supplementary electoral roll.

Allegations of foreigners being illegally registered as voters to shore up the support of certain political parties have been continuously raised by the opposition parties, but consistently denied by the EC. - Malaysiakini