Klang MP Charles Santiago has discovered that the names of 3,457
voters in his parliamentary constituency have, without reason,
disappeared from the electoral roll since the 2008 general election.
“They
were registered voters in the 2008 general election but when you key in
their identity card numbers in the Election Commission (EC) online
database, it says ‘no information’,” he told Malaysiakini after calling a press conference in Klang this morning.
Under
the current laws, only voters who have died, been declared bankrupt,
have had their citizenship revoked or been declared insane can be
removed from the electoral roll, and the reasons for removal will be
stated in every quarterly supplementary roll.
However, Santiago (left) claimed that the reasons for their removal from the roll were not stated, and not all of them are elders.
“In our search on the ground, we located several of them. They are still alive and eligible to vote,” he said.
Klang,
a parliamentary constituency with three state seats - Pelabuhan Klang,
Kota Alam Shah and Pandamaran - has some 95,000 registered voters in the
latest electoral roll.
Santiago and his team also found out that
2,195 voters in Klang have transferred their voting addresses to other
constituencies but their addresses in the electoral roll still remain in
Klang, which is not allowed under the current regulations.
Since
2002, the EC has make it compulsory that any voting address must be the
same as the voter’s address recorded in his or her MyKad.
If voters want to change their voting constituencies, they must first change their addresses recorded in their MyKad.
Hence,
for those Klang voters to transfer their voting addresses to other
constituencies, they have to first change their MyKad addresses, which
will be reflected in the electoral roll.
According to Charles,
these 2,195 voters have been relocated to 184 parliamentary
constituencies nationwide including Sabah and Sarawak.
‘Questionable transfers of voters’
“This
trend is highly irregular. These are questionable transfers of voters.
We need a re-check of the Klang electoral roll,” Charles commented.
He doubted that all the removals and transfers have obtained the permission of the voters.
Charles had filed a complaint to the Selangor EC on May 17 but there has been no response until today.
“We are now going to the ground to locate these voters,” he added.
The
DAP MP also claimed that a voter in Bandar Bukit Tinggi, Klang, had
complained that he was forced to re-register himself as a new voter as
his name had suddenly disappeared from the electoral roll.
Another
lady, Charles said, complained that she had never registered herself as
a voter but a check with the EC online database showed that she had
been registered to vote in Butterworth.
The lady, who has never resided in Butterworth, was forced to change her voting constituency back to Klang.
When
this case was raised by Charles during the press conference, a female
reporter from an English daily claimed that she had also encountered
such incidents.
She found herself to be a voter in Hulu Selangor although she has never registered, said Charles.
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