Don't Wait Till Last Minute To Register As Voters, 3.9 Million Told

KUALA LUMPUR, May 26 (Bernama) -- The 3.9 million Malaysians aged 21 and above have been advised to register as voters fast so as not to affect their chances of voting in the coming general election.

Election Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the advice was given as the process for voting eligibility would take two to three months.

"Malaysians like to do things at the last minute, whether it's paying utility bills, assessment rates or traffic summonses. So I urge that they register as voters immediately when they've reached the voting age," he said in an exclusive interview with Bernama.

Abdul Aziz said the process began with registration, displaying the electoral roll, the objection process, public investigation, appeal against the objection, gazetting the electoral roll, and combining the supplementary electoral roll with the electoral master roll.

He said that until February this year, 15,784,484 Malaysians aged 21 and above were eligible to register as voters and out of this number, 11,811,452 had done so.

"The remaining 3,973,032 or 25.2 per cent have not registered as voters."

Abdul Aziz said the EC had finished displaying the supplementary electoral roll for the first quarter of 2011 from April 28 to May 4 at 1,005 locations nationwide.

"In that quarter, 360,246 people had applied to register as voters, comprising 301,171 new applications and 59,075 for change of polling centre address."

He said the number would increase when the supplementary electoral roll for the 1/2011 quarter was confirmed and combined with the electoral master roll.