Nurul: Under-21 persons registered as voters

(FZ.com) - A total of 772 individuals under the eligible voting age of 21 have been registered as electorates in the Lembah Pantai constituency, its MP Nurul Izzah Anwar revealed on Thursday.

Citing an example, she said, a voter born on June 19, 1990 was listed in the master electoral roll on March 2, 2011, three months before the individual turned 21.

 

"The Election Commission (EC) must explain if those not of legal age can be registered as a voter," Nurul Izzah told a press conference in parliament.

 

Apart from that she pointed out that postal voters in her constituency had increased by a staggering 1,500% in the past four years.

 

The number stood at 154 in 2008 but rose to 2,227 by the third quarter of 2012.

 

They included 383 postal voters who were previously objected to during the display of the quarterly supplementary roll.

 

The MP said that these voters were supposed to be listed at the Bukit Jalil temporary holding facility, but they are now registered as postal voters at the Travers police station.

 

"In early 2011, I found that the Bukit Jalil temporary holding facility, which  is 12 km away from Lembah Pantai and located in the Bandar Tun Razak constituency in 2008, was included as a Lembah Pantai postal voting centre.

 

"After making several objections to the EC, I am now shocked to find the latest data indicating that the 383 postal voters have been moved from the Bukit Jalil temporary holding facility to the Travers police station," she added.

 

Nurul Izzah also complained of more than 31,544 voters on the electoral roll who are without complete addresses. And of 31 voters, 22 of whom were moved from Seputeh, and all of them were registered to seven units at the Kampung Limau low cost flats.

 

She said attempts to meet with the Federal Territories Election Commission chief on these issues have failed despite having tried repeatedly.

 

"So we have met with (Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department) Datuk Seri Nazri (Abdul Aziz), who has instructed the EC chairperson and his officers to come and address MPs in Parliament on Nov 19 on these issues," said Nurul Izzah.

 

Nevertheless, in order to have make the EC's job easier, she said opposition MPs who have found similar irregularities in their checks will proceed to submit their findings to EC by tomorrow.

 

Kuantan PKR parliamentarian Fuziah Salleh who was also at the press conference expressed frustration as she claimed that EC in her constituency claimed ignorance of the discrepancies.

 

"The point is, it’s not our job to audit the electoral roll. We have other things to do as MPs, this is taking up our valuable time. And we should not have to hire staff or recruit volunteers and spend late nights checking the roll," she said.

 

Among others, Fuziah said she has raised issues over rubber-stamping the ballot papers instead of the previous practice of ballot papers with perforations.

 

"This opens up to more fraud. Anyone can make a rubber stamp. We are within six months of elections and still these problems are there," she hit out.