EC says 19,342 voters moved to correct past errors

The Malaysian Insider 
by Shannon Teoh

KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — The Election Commission (EC) denied today that it has changed electoral boundaries but instead moved 19,342 voters because they were placed in the wrong constituencies.

According to those who attended a briefing for MPs this afternoon, EC chief Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof (picture) said corrections have been made since 2004 using the Election Geographical Information System (EGIS).

“The corrections in locations have been conducted by state EC chiefs since 2008 but there have been no changes to the boundaries of state or parliamentary constituencies.

“It was found that there were voters in the wrong constituency, 19,342 voters were involved,” he told the MPs at the briefing in Parliament.

PKR had complained last month that 31,294 voters have been moved into neighbouring constituencies illegally as border revisions must obtain the approval of a two-thirds majority of Parliament.

The opposition party pointed out that the Election Act only allowed border revisions within constituencies for administrative purposes and not to move voters from one constituency to another.

“When the EC has made a mistake in drawing borders, they cannot rectify (this) according to their whim and fancy. It should be part of a redelineation, as it moves a voter from one constituency to another,” PKR vice president Fuziah Salleh had said.

A redelineation is due but may only be conducted with the approval of two-thirds of Parliament, according to the Federal Constitution.

But Abdul Aziz said today subsection 25 (3) of the Election (Registration of Electors) Regulations 2002 gave the EC powers to make corrections if voters were found to be in the wrong locality.

The subsection reads “where an error has resulted in any person being registered as an elector of a registration area which is not a registration area in respect of which that person should have been registered, the Chief Registrar may enter that person’s name in the principal electoral roll or the supplementary electoral roll for the appropriate registration area.”

The EC chief also said these corrections have been frozen until after general elections but the “19,342 that have been changed, will remain changed.”

He added that the EC would try its best to inform the 19,342 voters even though there was no law compelling it to.