14-day campaigning will put pressure on postal voters, says Bersih

Electoral reform group Bersih has expressed concern over the 14-day campaign period scheduled for the upcoming state elections, saying that it may significantly burden postal voters.

The group stressed that the period was too short - providing limited time and opportunity for Malaysians residing overseas to exercise their voting rights.

“Since GE14 (14th general election), we have received numerous reports from overseas voters that by the time they received their postal ballots, it was either very close to polling day or (had) passed it.

“Campaign periods should be a minimum of 21 days,” the group said in a statement today.

Bersih suggested that if the Election Commission (EC) was not willing to extend the campaign period, the commission should reform the postal voting system.

It proposed that postal voters be given the option to download a digital copy of their ballot papers, which they can print out and mail back to Malaysia promptly.

Implementing this approach would eliminate the necessity for postal voters to endure the waiting period associated with the physical delivery of their ballot papers to their respective locations, it said.

“This would also eliminate clerical errors commonly found with the current process of manually writing out serial numbers and stuffing envelopes. It would also be a huge cost saving for the EC,” Bersih added.

Earlier, EC chairperson Abdul Ghani Salleh announced that the state elections for Selangor, Kedah, Penang, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Negeri Sembilan will be held on Aug 12.

Ghani said that nomination day has been set on July 29 and that early voting will be scheduled on Aug 8.

For postal ballots, Ghani announced that applications for overseas postal voters, which have been open since June 15, will be closed on July 8.

The 14-day campaigning period was consistent with those set for the 15th general election (GE15) last year and the state elections in Johor, Sarawak, Malacca, and Sabah.

Meanwhile, Bersih voiced its approval of the decision to hold the elections simultaneously for all six states on the same date.

The group argued that if the elections were held on six different dates instead, it would only prolong the period of political campaigning and create additional confusion for voters, thus undermining the integrity of the voting process. - Mkini