‘Democracy may be affected by auto voter registration’

(Bernama) – KUALA LUMPUR: The government does not plan to amend the Federal Constitution to enable Malaysians to be registered automatically as voters upon reaching the age of 21.

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department VK Liew told the Dewan Rakyat today that this method had its weaknesses and could pose problems if implemented.

He said that due to the high mobility rate, most Malaysians now did not live at the address originally registered in their identity card and did not register the address change.

“If automatic registration is implemented and if there is a general election, it is feared that the voter turn-out will be low because many will not be able to return to the address registered to cast their vote, and indirectly affect the democratic process practised.

“Based on this, the government has no plan yet to register voters automatically,” he said when replying to Dr Marcus Mojigoh (BN-Putatan) who wanted to know the government stand on the issue.

Liew said 842,726 new voters were registered in 2007, 155,420 in 2008, 279,270 in 2009 and 819,489 in 2010.

– Bernama