.jpg "Malaysian voters in the UK staged a protest against the Election Commission in front of the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board office near Trafalgar square on May 7, 2018. u00e2u20acu201d Picture courtesy of Melissa Sasidaran/Facebook")
PETALING JAYA, May 8 — With hours to polling for the 14th general election, Malaysians outside the country registered to vote by post have taken to social media to express anxiety over the delay in receiving their ballot papers.
Up to yesterday, voters in Australia to Italy, France and the UK claim they have not received their ballot papers. Their added fear is that even if they got them a few hours later, the ballot papers would not reach the returning officers in their respective voting constituencies before 5pm tomorrow, when polling closes.
Some 30 unhappy voters in the UK staged a protest against the Election Commission (EC) at about noon yesterday in front of the Malaysian Tourism Promotion Board office near Trafalgar Square in London.
Protesters were mostly dressed in yellow, the trademark colour of election reforms group Bersih 2.0, and carried placards stating “Where is our ballot paper?”.
The tourism office was closed as it was a bank holiday in the UK.
Among those protesting was lawyer Melissa Sasidaran who posted pictures of the demonstration on her Facebook page with the caption: “#Bersih protest in London. So many Malaysians without their ballot and cannot make a choice for themselves and future generation”.
UK Bersih in its Facebook page said the protest at Trafalgar Square was also to call for a clean and fair election in Malaysia.
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Its coordinator Yolanda Augustin criticised the EC, calling it incompetent in handling overseas postal voting.
Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown also made an appearance at the protest in a show of solidarity.
Also seen at the protest was Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni who is furthering her studies there and had read out her organisation’s “Eight-point human rights agenda for election candidates”.
The problem of postal votes not reaching the EC in time to be included in the counting of ballots after polling closes at 5pm is not new, as shown in the EC's own reports in past general elections.
As far back as GE2 held in 1964, the EC noted in its report that the rate of return of postal votes issued was not satisfactory, with complaints generally being the insufficient time to return the votes.
The EC noted then that there were requests made for a longer time between nomination day and polling day to enable ballot papers to be printed to allow for early postal voting.
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In its report on the 12th general election in 2008, the EC said 2.2 per cent or 177,256 votes were rejected, including 40,980 of votes from ordinary voters and late postal votes from the police, armed forces and those abroad.
In its post-mortem report on the GE13, the EC had identified several weaknesses, including the issue of postal votes.
The EC had in the 2013 post-mortem identified that there was late pickup and delivery of envelopes containing postal votes for overseas voters by Pos Malaysia Berhad as the company did not operate on weekends, and that some postal voters were unable to vote as they were out at work when the priority envelopes — which must be personally received by them — were delivered to their homes.
The EC in its post-mortem report said it will coordinate with PMB as the company was previously informed in meetings that the company had to operate on weekends for the purpose of sending out ballot papers to overseas voters.
