Seri Serdang ADUN refutes EC allegations of "staged" blackout photo

The State Assembly member for Seri Serdang, Noor Hanim Ismail, has refuted a statement by the Election Commission that alleged that a photograph circulated on the Internet showing a “blackout” during a vote-counting process at the recent general election was staged.

Noor Hanim claims that the photograph was actually taken by one of her counting agents in the Saluran 3 tallying station at Sekolah Kebangsaan Serdang at 7.32pm on 5 May 2013. She also denied claims that the photograph was taken prior to polling day as alleged by the Deputy Chairman of the EC, Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar.

She opined that the allegation was made solely to cover up any shortcomings in the Standard Operating Procedure of the EC and the conduct of the last general elections.

Noor Hanim observed that she found it odd that Wan Ahmad appeared to be ignorant about the fact that EC officers assigned on polling day were officially attired in grey t-shirts.

She also said that during the power outage, her representative actually went through a lot of trouble to locate torchlights to ensure that the vote tallying process could proceed with minimal interruptions.

She further denied the EC's allegations that there were journalists and reporters present in the location, saying that only the Polling Station Master (KTM), EC officers, the candidate's representatives and the police officer on duty was present then.

"I ask that the EC, particularly Wan Ahmad, apologise to the Malaysian people for their mistake in making a public statement without in-depth investigation and shrugging off genuine concerns raised by the public," she said in her statement to the media.

Media reports yesterday sourced from Bernama said that EC considered the photograph taken off the alleged blackout was staged and taken prior to polling day on 5 May 2013.

Wan Ahmad stated in his statement that this conclusion was based on observations made by him and his officers.

Malaysia Chronicle

Original photograph claimed by the EC to be staged

Enhanced photograph showing details

Legend to arrows (left to right)
- SPR tag worn by EC officers (rather than journalist as alleged by the EC)
- SPR tag worn by candidate's representative (rather than journalist as alleged by the EC)
- Police officer on duty
- SPR logo clearly seen on the side of the tray