Outline postal voting safeguards, Wan Azizah tells EC

GE14 | PKR president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail has called on the Election Commission to reveal the mechanism it will employ to ensure the postal voting system for the upcoming general election is safe from manipulation.

She said the commission must, in particular, explain how it will ensure that each postal ballot is indeed received and marked by the voters themselves.

“I am calling on the EC to explain the mechanism that will ensure the postal voting system will not be exposed to fraud and manipulation, especially the mechanism to oversee that the ballot papers are indeed received by the postal voters and marked by them.

“Therefore, I urge the EC to create a mechanism that will allow postal voters to file a complaint should they fail to receive their ballot papers,” she said in a statement today.

Wan Azizah also called on the EC to divulge the exact breakdown of registered postal voters according to the number of voters overseas (according to countries), civil servants (according to the 11 gazetted departments) and media personnel.

She expressed her disappointment with EC’s decision in setting polling day for a weekday, and that the latter did not take heed of Pakatan Harapan’s request for at least a three-week campaign period.

This shows, she said, that the EC failed to take into account the additional 1.6 million voters compared to the 2013 election.

“The average number of voters per parliament (seat) is now 67,300 voters compared to 59,766 voters in GE13. In light of this increase, it is clear that more time is needed to approach voters,” she added. - Mkini