DAP shows evidence of tainted electoral roll

Malaysiakini - DAP’s economic advisor Tony Pua today adduced an array of evidence of irregularities in the Petaling Jaya Utara (PJU) electoral roll and urged the Election Commission to look into the matter. At a press conference in the Selangor party headquarters, Pua showed that 35 voters were found to be more then 100 years old in the gazetted electoral roll in the third-quarter of last year.

“A few of them were born in 1880 which makes them 128 years old. I believe some are already deceased and yet the EC hasn’t removed their names yet,” he exclaimed.

He also handed out to reporters a list of 21 addresses with more than 20 people registered as voters for each of them.

Pua explained it could because those who had moved out of the address have failed to update the EC.

“There are more then 20 people in a house. It’s excessively wrong and the EC should investigate,” he said.

According to Pua, there are also 1,358 people out of 76,193 registered voters in PJU with incomplete residential addresses.

“This makes tracing such individuals very difficult because they don’t have house numbers. Could these be the busloads of phantom voters that Umno will bring in?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Selangor DAP secretary Lau Weng San also said the EC committed too many data entry errors thus causing problems for registered voters.

Sample of data entry error

He said he has received complaints from two Section 20 PJ residents that they were registered to vote in two very different areas.

“One has been listed to vote in Section 20 Shah Alam and the other in SS20 PJ. This is a clear cut data entry error.

“How can the EC be so inefficient? We need a cleaner and updated electoral roll,” he said.

Lau also raised the issue that 232 people who registered to vote through DAP booths in August 2006 to December 2007 have yet to be listed on the updated electoral roll.

Discrepancies in the electoral roll continue to be a long-standing election issue raised by the opposition.

Meanwhile, speculations continue to run rife as to when Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would call for elections.

Pundits anticipate an announcement soon as the Barisan Nasional party machinery has begun to run.

Yesterday, Abdullah openly conceded that the ruling coalition will not be able to repeat its astounding electoral feat at the 2004 polls.

“2004 was an exceptional time. It was a transitional period, a time of high hopes. Now we have to implement, and implementation requires a lot of things,” said Abdullah at a press conference after a meeting with Umno leaders at the party's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.