Make life easier for people to become voters, DAP tells EC

The Election Commission (EC) should make life easier for people to register as new voters by providing sufficient registration forms and manpower, Selangor DAP said today.

State DAP assistant treasurer Lau Weng San said the party, which had set up mobile registration counters in cooperation with heads of village development and security committee (JKKK) and the EC, has been facing problems for the past six months.

"We have been setting up counters at various shopping centres for registration of voters, but we often end up with insufficient forms," he said when contacted by Malaysiakini.

The Kampung Tunku assemblyperson said there have been incidents where the EC even declined to send its team to the counters.

As a result, they are forced to seek help from JKKK heads who are appointed as assistant registrar officers (AROs) by the EC, in their final push to encourage four million eligible Malaysians to register as new voters.

Lau said the process has been made difficult for JKKK heads when they show up at the state EC office for the registration forms.

"They would ask for more forms, but often get only 100 to 300. The excuse would usually be shortage of forms. Last week, a JKKK head in Kuala Kubu Baru was only given 100 forms when he asked for 1,000," he said.

Lau added that this was after the Selangor EC officer found out that the head was with the JKKK under the administration of the state government rather than the federal village development and security committee (JKKKP).

He then questioned whether EC practices double standards by issuing more registration forms to the JKKKP heads than to JKKK heads.

Earlier today, Lau went to EC office in Selangor with Kuala Kubu Baru assemblyperson Lee Kee Hiong and JKKK representatives to get more forms.

The group only secured 500 forms as the officer claimed they need to act fairly.

"We only provide 500 forms. When you return these forms, we will give more," said an officer confronted by Lee.

Commenting further, Lau said post office officers who are appointed as AROs can help the people to register online.

"EC should be able to set up (mobile) counters for online registration. We can get rid of these forms.

"We are demanding EC to make life easier for the people, instead of coming up with these unwritten regulations. After all, EC is responsible for the registration of eligible voters.

"The AROs should help eligible Malaysians, regardless of their ethnic and religious background," he added.- Mkini