A blind woman and a polling agent cry foul over electoral fraud

The Bersih People's Tribunal. Malaysian Insider pic, September 18.A blind woman was registered as a voter more than 500km away from her village in Sabah while a polling agent in Malacca saw advanced ballot papers counted days before polling day, the Bersih People's Tribunal heard today.

The tribunal, organised by Bersih 2.0 for free and fair elections, presented two witnesses who told their accounts of electoral fraud during the recent general election.

"My friends told me that many people were registered as voters without them knowing. So I checked and found that my name was also there," said Inungkiran Mongijal, a blind 52-year-old proofreader for a Braille publishing firm in Kuala Lumpur.

According to her statement, she found out before GE13 that her name was listed as a voter in Tawau, more than 500km away from her birthplace.

Inungkiran was born in a village in Kudat, Sabah but has been staying in Peninsular Malaysia since 1969.

"I've never been to Tawau. The electoral roll even had my new and old identification numbers and my handphone number," she said.

Inungkiran added she is not a registered voter.

However, she did not lodge a police report but was later told by colleagues that she could come before the People's Tribunal to relate her experience.

Next was Abu Hussein Thambi, who told the tribunal that he saw Election Commission(EC) officers counting the early votes days before the polling day.

Abu Hussein, a polling agent in Malacca, said he escorted the ballot boxes to a police station in Lubuk Cina where he saw EC officers counting ballot papers in a room.

He lodged a police report and requested to view the closed-circuit television recording (CCTV) but was told by the officer that "all results are decided by supervisors". He did not receive any response from the EC and the police after his report.

Head of the tribunal's legal team Prof Gurdial Singh Nijar explained to the panellists that the advanced and postal votes are supposed to be kept in a secure location till polling day when it would then be transferred to the counting centre, where all votes including those cast on that day itself were counted.