Selangor DAP puzzled over spike in rural voters

Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching has raised suspicions over the sudden spike in new rural voters compared to 2008.

An example, she said, was in the Hulu Selangor parliamentary constituency which experienced a 23.2 percent spike from 63,593 to 78,370.

"In places with new townships, it is acceptable. But Hulu Selangor does not have many people moving in so we find the huge increase very suspicious," she said when contacted.

Hulu Selangor was won by PKR in 2008 by a razor 198-vote majority but was recaptured by BN's P Kamalanathan (left) who garnered 24,997 votes against his rival who bagged 23,272 votes.

She added that there were also significant increases in marginal seats held by Pakatan Rakyat.

Hulu Langat which was won by PAS with a 1745-vote majority and Selayang which was won by PKR with 3,567-vote majority have seen a jump of 21.7 percent and 22 percent in new voters respectively.

New voters

"The increase is from new voters, not voters who have changed addresses. The number is far higher than the new voters that we have registered," she said.

In her own constituency of Serdang, there has also been an increase of 21.2 percent new voters from 94,877 to 117,979.

The statistics which is based on the Election's Commission's (EC) latest release up to the end of last year, has seen Selangor voters increasing by 17.5 percent from 1.57 million to 1.84 million.

She adds that the latest release of new voters list showed many had incomplete addresses.

"This is a little disturbing, usually the new voter list has their complete addresses but this time, many of the addresses are incomplete with the house numbers missing.

"This makes it difficult for us to check whether the person in the list is a valid voter or not," she said.

Teo said she will write to the EC for an explanation and the party is mooting filing objections. "We will face a serious challenge in the next general election," she brooded.