3,457 Klang voters gone from electoral roll, claims MP

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.