SHAH ALAM, 2 APRIL: The election commission (EC) refused to act on a complaint to remove a voter who were “illegally” registered onto the electoral roll, choosing to “hide behind” section 9A of the Elections Act 1958. Section 9A of the Elections Act provides that once the electoral roll is gazetted, changes cannot be made to names on the roll.

MP for Klang, Charles Santiago revealed this at a press conference together with a complainant, Siva Kumar S Khatiramalai, who found that his son Dinesh Siva Kumar, 33, was registered without his knowledge.

However, Charles questioned how the EC could have removed “Papagomo” from the electoral roll, based on the same logic.

Papagomo is an anti-PR website run by Wan Muhammad Azri Wan Deris, who was revealed by PKR this month to be a postal voter as well as a normal voter, and possessed two identity cards.

Charles told the press conference that upon investigation with the EC, it was discovered that Dinesh, who is residing in the United Kingdom, was registered by an UMNO Assistant Registrar, Hishamuddin Kassim.

Shockingly, the Selangor EC chief admitted this same registrar had registered many dubious voters before. However despite his misconduct, no action has been taken against Hishamuddin, who has since been terminated from his position.

“I asked him how many people Hishamuddin had registered as voters. He said ‘many’,” Charles said.

EC powerless to act against dubious electoral roll

EC officials also stated that there were “factors out of their control” which prevented them from rectifying dubious names on the electoral roll.

Charles said it proved that EC is aware of discrepancies on the electoral roll and that abuse of power exists, but did not take action against it. In January this year, EC Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof famously claimed that no country could ever clean their electoral roll 100 per cent.

“How clean do they want the roll to be, only God knows. I don’t know what kind of soap I’d have to use (to get it clean),” he added.

Referring the Siva Kumar and Dinesh’s case Charles expressed dissatisfaction with the answers given by the EC regarding the complaint. He added that Siva Kumar had filed a police report on 31 January 2013 in the Klang police station. -The Rocket