SIZE MATTERS NOW

I have met up with a few friends over the past several months. I was surprised by their apathy over their basic democratic rights to choose their government of choice. They were disinterested in exercising their voting rights even though most of them are in fact registered voters. I was very concerned. Voting right is our birth right in a democratic country. There are many things that we cannot choose in our life but certainly we can choose our government.


I inquired further and found out that they cared a lot about their country and its well being. They wanted to choose a good government to make their country great. However, they were in dissolution over the electoral rolls or the authenticity of voters in the registered list. They felt that their votes have become useless due to the numerous alleged manipulation of voters' list.


"I vote but so what? Can my vote do anything?" is the gist of the feeling among my friends.While i gave them the benefit of doubts on what they claimed, I was determined to search for more information on alleged manipulation of voters' list.


It did not take me a long time to dig out some  information this. Mr Google pretty much did all the work for me. When i read through some published articles. 'Surprised' i was with the claims of my friends, but 'astonished' i am now with the problems and potential manipulations of our voters' list. We are no Myanmar. We are not a young democratic country. Our elections have been going around for more than 50 years. Surely, we have established voting processes and a well documented voters' list, havent we?


My first shock was the fact that our Election Commission could decide that it would 'pick and choose' whether to implement any of the recommendations of Parliamentary Select Committee. Several excuses were given. I thought that was arrogance and refusal to acknowledge their potential problems. Unless, Election Commission can rebut and prove that the Parliamentary Select Committee is wrong in its recommendations, it should implement all the recommendations immediately. It is for the good of our country.


My second shocker came with the incompleteness of Parliamentary Select Committee's reviews and recommendations. Have they not done their job as parliamentarians?


According to this gentleman, called Ong Kian Ming, there are 10 more major problems in our Election Commission's electoral roll on top of the 22 recommendations by the Parliamentary Select Committee. He stated openly that "the [Parliamentary] report fails to acknowledge significant problems that have to do with the electoral roll, many of which are already well known, and seems to limit the scope of checking the accuracy of the electoral roll to a few not very useful parameters". Huh?!? Election Commission is probably not doing a good job, but the  Parliamentary Select Committee is also not doing a decent job? Is this real or not? I kept asking myself.


Mr Ong went on to elaborate the 10 problems:


The 10 problems are:

1) Voters who are above 85 years old.

2) Inconsistencies in the gender indicated by the IC number and EC data.

3) Voters with the same name, and some with the same/similar date of birth.

4) Voters who have IC addresses with the state of birth as ‘7x', indicating that they are born overseas.

5) Voters in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur in the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2011 who do not have house addresses, even though other newly-registered voters in the same locality have house addresses.

6) Postal voters who are registered using their regular ICs.

7) Spouses of police who are registered as postal voters.

8) Spouses of army/police voters who are of the same gender.

9) Army and police voters who are above the retirement age.

10) New army and police postal voters who are above the recruitment age.




I may not be an election expert but I surely think that the 10 major problems sound like big problems. The details are exciting and you should really click on this link and read them. The details are quite exciting. No less than watching a good movie.

Ong Kian Ming

There are another 2 articles by Mr Ong Kian Ming in Malaysiakini on top of his first part of 10 major problems. I suggest that you use your newspaper money to subscribe to Malaysiakini to read more. I could not wait and immediately registered with Malaysiakini for further reading. It actually costs less than monthly subscription of daily newspaper! I attach the links for the other 2 articles:


http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/194435 (10 major problems. Part 2)


http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/195823 (further problems in addition to 10 major problems. How many more problems are there ':-(  )


Mr Ong Kian Ming may just be a lecturer, I am sure he loves his country so dearly that he is willing to spend so much time to dig out the 'dirt' in the voters' list. Based on my work  experience, these works take ages to do and damn meticulous. Bravo to this gentleman. If you feel really stingy and still wish to read further, perhaps you can contact Mr Ong Kian Ming and see if he is willing to share some information with you at the following email: im.ok.man@gmail.com  (Please dont get angry at me, Mr Ong. I admire you so much that i actually have to share it this posting)


Hey, if you only want free information and can not take any trouble, I have also attached here some other links on problems of voters' list:


http://www.bersih.org/?p=4754


http://www.mmail.com.my/story/electoral-roll-rife-errors


http://1christians.blogspot.com/2012/06/strange-case-of-recycled-ics-in-sabah.html  (I am not a christian and the article has nothing to do with religion. Its about voters. Go ahead and read)


Our Election Commission has also come out to say that our electoral roll is the cleanest in the world. 


It is not easy to believe our Election Commission on such a claim. It is only recently that the big boss of  police, Inspector General of Police, claimed that Malaysia is the safest country in Southeast Asia. Seriously?!?  I wonder what Singapore and Brunei have to say about this.


I now understand why my friends are disheartened with the authenticity or effectiveness of the our election. The question is how many percent of the voters' list is bad? 0%, 5%, 10%, 20% or more? I do not have an answer to this. We have about 13 million registered voters in this country. Any percentage of illegitimate voters is bad.


I wish to advise my friends not to give up. One must not let status quo remains if one thinks that the status quo is bad. A rightful citizen like us must do something to right what is wrong. We dont want to leave any of the wrong for our children or younger generation. We are not here to pass burden to them.


I agree that we cant do much as each of us only has one vote against potentially thousands or even millions of illegitimate voters. Let's not be despair. We, the rightful voters, can be an insurmountable force if we act collectively. Each and every one of us must come out to vote. We must not stay at home disheartened. If we come out to cast our votes and we vote in the right direction for this country. No matter what percentage of errors, problems and seemingly manipulations in voters' list, we shall prevails. We, the rightful voters, still form the majority voters, at least up to this point. Size matters now.


Let's act now to send a signal so strong that no percentage of errors, problems and alleged abuses can alter the direction of this signal. Each of us should probably do more than just casting a vote. We should at least convince 2 persons close to us that everyone should come out to cast this very important vote in the coming general election. These 2 persons in turn should each persuades another 2 persons close to them to vote. We have to make this vote counts. We have to make this vote cleans up the voters' list or electoral rolls. We vote for a government that is serious in cleaning up the voters' list. We, the rightful citizens, of the country cannot decide what is good for our country if the voters' list is not clean and free from problems.