EC: 41,000 non-locals registered as Sabahan voters

The Election Commission (EC) today said a total of 40,955 non-Sabah born citizens have been registered as voters in the state.

“They include people who are born in peninsula Malaysia, Sarawak as well as foreigners,” testified EC information technology division assistant chief secretarial officer Shafee Sajat.

However, Shafee, who oversees EC’s electoral roll database, was unable to furnish the royal commission of inquiry on immigrants in Sabah with a breakdown of the statistics, particularly the number of foreigners involved.

Shafee said all the names on the electoral roll were indeed citizens and this is checked during the registration process.

“There are two ways, one is by integrating the Agency Link Up System (Alis) with EC’s own registration system.

“That means when an application is made, it will automatically tally the information with Alis and determine whether they are citizens or not.

“The other method is to access the Alis server of the National Registration Department (NRD)  and key in their identity card number manually to determine if they are citizens or not,” he said.

Alis is a system which, among others, links the NRD’s information database with the EC, allowing the latter to cross-check information of citizens prior to voter registration.

Shafee also confirmed that the NRD submits a list of names of those who are above 21 years of age and those who have passed away for the EC to update their own database of voters.

Furthermore, the electoral list is also sent to NRD for vetting from time to time, he said.

He added that the electoral roll database could not be arbitrarily altered as only selected officials can amend it and it can only be done once the proposed changes have been put on display for 14 days and gazetted in the quarterly electoral roll.

Three witnesses took the stand during the first day of the third session of the RCI’s hearing today.

A total of 58 witnesses had taken the stand since the RCI proceedings began on Jan 14.