KUALA LUMPUR, 6 Mar — Nearly a third of Selangor’s half a million new voters are unidentifiable, said its Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, adding to the already heightening suspicion over the Election Commission (EC) handling of the state’s electoral roll, seen by many as rigged.
Khalid said that the identities of the 134,675 new voters in the state registered since 2008 could not be detected, making up a whopping 28 percent out the 497,084 forming the new pool of electorate in Selangor.
The conclusion was made based on the data obtained from the EC during the last quarter of 2011.
Selangor Democratisation Project
The data were analyzed through an initiative by the Selangor state government, titled ‘Selangor Democratisation Project’, aiming to detect irregularities in the state’s electoral roll.
According to the report issued by the initiative, three areas with the highest number of unidentified voters are Seri Serdang, Subang Jaya and Hulu Klang.
The report added that the number of new voters in Selangor has amounted to 659,588 by the last quarter of 2012.
Khalid said the state government had sent an offer to the Election Commission (EC) to clean up the electoral roll, but it received a disappointing response.
Khalid, also Member of Parliament for Bandar Tun Razak said the answers given by the EC on this matter have not been helpful to investigate details on this matter.
“We [the state government] were told that it is not the Selangor government’s duty to do so,” Khalid said.
He said so during the launching of the two-day International Conference on Malaysia 13th General Election organized here by the Office of the Leader of the Opposition on 4 March.
The total of Selangor’s electoral roll has marked a significant increase from 1,568,493 in 2008 to 2,025,153 in the third quarter of 2012. — The Rocket
