Political parties bring in the most but 40% are ineligible

 

By Shahanaaz Habib and Rashvinjeet S Bedi, The Star

PUTRAJAYA: Voter registration numbers have gone up significantly, thanks to efforts by political parties.

But some 40% of the new voters they have registered turned out to be ineligible.

“Some are dead, underage or already registered voters,” said Election Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof.

“We verify with the National Registration Department (NRD) those who are genuine and get rid of the names of those who are not. This makes it tiring because we have to keep checking,” he told The Star.

Despite this, he said, political parties still registered the highest number, bringing in more half of the new eligible voters.

“Compared to universities and NGOs, the voters we get from political parties are a lot more,” he said.

For May alone, 52% of new eligible voters were registered by political parties.

Twenty per cent were registered through post offices and 13% by government departments.

The EC, meanwhile, roped in 10% of the new voters through its counters and outreach programme.

Universities and NGOs helped to register 3% and 2% new voters respectively.

Abdul Aziz added that the EC had appointed political parties, NGOs and universities as assistant registrars to help register new voters, paying RM1 for every clean and confirmed new voter these organisations bring in.

“If they register 1,000 new voters and only 600 are genuine, we pay them RM600,” he said.

Between 2008 and 2009, there were 10 million registered voters in the country and another 4.3 million eligible voters who were not registered.

This year, the total number of registered voters increased to 12 million and eligible unregistered voters dropped to 3.7 million.

“We have made registration easy and simple. You can go to the post office, youth bodies, universities, colleges, government departments, NGOs and political parties to register,” he added.

Abdul Aziz said the Malaysian EC was the only one in the world that appointed political parties to assist in registering new voters.

He pointed out that it made sense to rope in political parties.

“We appoint an average of two assistant registrars for each state seat. And because they have an interest, they work very hard to register new voters.

“When we do the voter registration ourselves, the response is not very good. We go to events like TV3’s Jom Heboh to register new voters but it is difficult for people to come forward.

“This has to do with attitude. People ask what benefit they get by registering as voters. Some people do not have the spirit. They ask what happens if they don’t register and when they find out no action is taken, they leave it as it is. Only those who really love the country and would like to choose their own leaders would voluntarily go and register as voters.”

Abdul Aziz also advised the people to vote in their current place of residence as this was stipulated in the law. This would also resolve the issue of phantom voters, where voters allegedly stay in a different place from where they cast their vote.

He said people should not feel attachment to their hometown and balik kampung to cast their votes.

“If I stay in Shah Alam, I shouldn’t go back to Penang or my hometown to vote,” he said.

He estimated that about 30% to 40% of Malaysians voted in a different place or state than where they lived.

“I have no power to force them to vote where they live. I can only explain and persuade them,” he added.