JOHOR POLLS | Technical issues on the Election Commission (EC) website have sparked concern among Johor voters as they are not able to register for an account to apply for postal voting for the forthcoming state election.
With the Johor postal vote applications closing tomorrow (Feb 18), the voters are concerned that they may miss the deadline due to these issues.
Addressing the complaints received at his service centre, Pekan Nanas assemblyperson Yeo Tung Siong urged the EC to extend the postal vote application deadline by one week to next Friday (Feb 25).
“The nomination day for the state election is on Feb 26 and the EC can only print the ballots after nomination to send the ballots to postal voters, so the EC does not have to rush for the postal vote application deadline one week before on Feb 18,” Yeo said in a statement yesterday.
He added that he received complaints about these technical issues from more than 10 Johor voters working in Singapore in the past two days.
The process
The process to apply for postal voting online requires one to register for an account on the EC’s website first and then apply to become a postal voter through that EC account.
When applying for an EC account, an email will be sent to one’s inbox to activate the account before one can log in.
A Johor voter who only wanted to be known as Giano said he, his wife and his brother were all sent to an error page when trying to activate their account on the website.
“We spent about a week just to create the account and try logging into the EC website, but we kept failing.
“We set up a new account, but we cannot activate it despite having received the verification email. The website kept showing an 'error’ message and we cannot log in.
“I tried to change my password a few times in order to log in as well but to no avail, which made me feel very dissuaded,” said the 35-year-old man who lives and works in Singapore with his wife and brother.
They are now in Johor for the Chinese New Year celebrations but will return to Singapore at the end of this month.
Though Giano later managed to log into his account with the help of volunteers online, the same method failed when he attempted to create accounts for his wife and brother, he claimed.
The volunteer who helped him with his account even assisted them in contacting the EC on this matter over the next few days but to no avail.
Other issues
He also said many of his Johorean friends living in Singapore are also facing the same problem.
“If it had just been me, I could consider myself unlucky. But a lot of my friends who work in Singapore are also facing the same issue. We cannot verify and activate our accounts at all.
“I really want to cast my vote. I have never missed the opportunity to vote before this, but now it is as if the EC does not want us to vote,” Giano added.
It seems that there are other technical issues with the site, as Yeo said voters have also complained of being unable to fill in their dates of birth in the account registration form on iPhones.
This, however, is easily solved by switching to another type of device.
He also claimed that the EC’s hotline is often busy and engaged.
Yeo warned that such problems plaguing the voting registration process will undermine the credibility of the EC, as there is already speculation among the voters that this is a deliberate attempt to prevent them from voting.
“I hope the EC can repair the website as soon as possible, increase the number of hotline and service personnel and more importantly, extend the deadline for postal voting registration in order to respect the right to vote of the people of Johor,” Yeo said.
Malaysiakini has reached out to the EC to get their response on this matter. - Mkini
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