Election Offences Act amendments - BN attempt to steal GE 13

Last Thursday, the BN government and their cohorts the SPR clearly demonstrated in unequivocal terms their intent to steal GE 13. They presented a bill to amend the Election Offences Act 1954 to further restrict scrutiny of the voting process by representatives of political parties and make the system more amenable to manipulation.

The original changes proposed included the following: a. removing the right of political parties to set up booths to assist voters establish their names on the electoral roll and saluran numbers identity of voters before going into polling stations (called "pondok panas") [section (26)(1)(e)]

b. removing the right of political parties to have representatives observing the process in the SPR booths inside polling stations ( Barung SPR ) where voters check their names and get their saluran numbers etc [section 26A] c. amending section 14 (1A) so that the SPR would dictate the time of arrival and departure of polling and counting agents of candidates at polling stations. The current law provided for polling and counting agents to arrive at the time decided by the political parties as long as they stayed at the polling stations for at least 2 hours. The net effect of these changes would have been to greatly reduce the current scrutiny of the voting process.

Pakatan Rakyat MPs put up strenuous objections to the amendments. Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim warned the BN in the closing words of his speech on Thursday morning that these new provisions would be defied by the opposition even if passed by the BN. He said that Pakatan Rakyat would not give up the established rights under the law which aided transparency in the process. The BN in the afternoon of Thursday then presented fresh amendments to the Bill backing down on (a) and (c) above restoring the status quo. However they used their brute majority in the House to ram through the amendment removing party representatives observing the process in the SPR Barung.

Opposition MPs argued to no avail that the SPR Barung was initiated by the BN by amendments in 2003 to assist voters to get their electoral and saluran numbers and had been implemented in the 2004 and 2008 elections without any issues. The lame justification put forward by the BN and the SPR was that "this causes difficulties to the election workers". When asked for reports of such "difficulties" none were cited.

Another controversial amendment pushed through was the removal of section 11(1)(c) requiring all printed material during campaign to bear the name of the publisher and printer. Removal of the onerous requirement of naming the printer all the time would have improved the provision as was argued by PR MPs. However removing it all together has opened the door to a dirtier election where all sorts of defamatory or inflammatory material could be put out without anyone taking responsibility for them.

What was apparent was that the BN and SPR were not interested in presenting the necessary amendments to the law to implement KEY recommendations by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform. Nothing had been done for example on key issues such as access to the media and the question of how a caretaker government. Even the regulations to implement "early voting" which was to replace the so-called postal voting system for army personnel, their spouses and police personnel were not presented to Parliament by the last day of the sitting leaving open the question of whether the BN and SPR were going to implement this key change for GE 13.

These legislative moves by the BN and SPR on Thursday made it clear that their real intent was to make the electoral process less transparent and easier to manipulateIt is clear that BERSIH 3.0 is needed even more than before. BERSIH's demand that the key recommendations of the PSC report must be implemented before GE 13 is central to a free and fair election. The Election Commission must resign for the legislative fiasco they caused in Parliament on Thursday and for their intransigence in implementing the PSC report and BERSIH demands. Sivarasa Rasiah Ahli Parlimen Subang Majlis Pimpinan Pusat dan Biro Politik Parti Keadilan Rakyat

Gerrymandering & Malapportionment - Mother of all electoral abuses

The EC (Election Commission) in cohorts with the UMNO/BN Federal Government and UMNO controlled Parliament has carried gerrymandering and mal-apportionment to such an absurd degree that UMNO/BN can win simple majority with just 15.4% of the total vote.

This is why Malaysians must participate in BERSIH 3.0 to demand for free and fair election, clean electoral roll, reforms before the 13th General Election and the resignation of the EC.

Read rest of The mother of all electoral abuses courtesy of Malaysiakini below:

The mother of all electoral abuses

Lim Hong Hai
10:09AM Dec 3, 2011

COMMENT I refer to the Malaysiakini report, ‘A retiree exposes gerrymandering in Sabah', and applaud Ng Chak Ngoon for his contribution, especially his graph on the unequal numbers of voters among electoral constituencies.
The delineation of constituencies has long been considered unfair because of two practices that are generally regarded as electoral abuses, namely mal-apportionment and gerrymandering.
Both these practices can have important effects under the first-past-the-post electoral system, which we use in Malaysia.

What Ng has so graphically exposed (chart below) is mal-apportionment or inequality among constituency electorates, rather than gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the drawing of constituency boundaries for partisan advantage and it can be done even in the absence of mal-apportionment.

Starting with the first constituency revision in 1974, various scholars have noted signs of gerrymandering but the more important source of unfairness in electoral constituencies is mal-apportionment.
The question now is: what can be done to reduce mal-apportionment and gerrymandering in constituency delineation? Three things seem important.
Reform the EC
First, strengthen the independence of the Election Commission (EC), the delineator at first instance. This can be done mainly by improving the process of appointing commission members, just as we have recently done with respect to judges.
The EC should also use its existing constitutional power to appoint its main administrative officials instead of totally relying on federal civil servants.
Second, the EC should report its recommendations on revised constituencies directly to Parliament for approval.
At present, the EC reports to the prime minister, who can then make changes to the commission's recommendations before tabling them in Parliament, and also thereafter, in order to secure their approval by Parliament.
This procedure does not inspire confidence that constituencies will be fairly delineated. An added measure is to require more than the present simple majority (in effect, the support of the ruling party alone) in Parliament for the approval of revised constituencies.
For example, such changes should require concurrent majorities by government and opposition or at least a two-thirds majority of Parliament.
Third, restore the clear numerical limits to mal-apportionment that have been removed from the federal constitution. Some background is useful for understanding the suggested measures.
To safeguard the fundamental principle of approximately equal electorates among constituencies, differences in constituency electorates were limited to 15 percent above or below the average constituency electorate at the time of Merdeka.
No more limits
These clear numerical limits were relaxed in 1962 and then removed in 1973 by constitutional amendments: the federal constitution now allows, rather imprecisely, "a measure of weightage" in favour of rural constituencies.
With clear limits removed, rural weightage has been liberally applied by the EC, even though communications and other disadvantages of rural areas that form the justification for rural weightage have undoubtedly and significantly declined since Merdeka.
Indeed, constituency electorates are now so unequal as to make one wonder whether the fundamental requirement of approximate equality is still being complied with.
For peninsular Malaysia, therefore, it is not unreasonable to restore the limits to mal-apportionment that existed at the time of Merdeka, that is, 15 percent above or below the average constituency electorate.
Conditions in Sabah and Sarawak would justify wider limits than those for peninsular Malaysia. We may restore the limits that were in force when Malaysia was formed.
Those limits allow the largest constituency to have twice the number of electors as the smallest constituency, this is, one-third or 33 percent above or below the average constituency in each state.
This would still represent a considerable reduction from present levels of mal-apportionment in the two states.
Largely, because of mal-apportionment, the practice of constituency delineation is the major cause of unfairness in our electoral system. It causes more unfairness than deficiencies in voter registration and campaign rules.
Indeed, correcting unfairness in constituency delineation is the acid test for the parliamentary select committee on electoral reform and the government.

---

LIM HONG HAI is a political scientist with Universiti Sains Malaysia. Here is a more detailed examination of the Malaysian electoral system in Lim's essay, ‘Electoral Politics in Malaysia: ‘Managing' Elections in a Plural Society'.

Expose: How Najib will cheat General Election 13

Hi all,

There's something going on in town (Petaling Jaya) tonight, if you have not received mails on it yet. Kindly see the email excerpt below.

LAST CALL
Come and be intrigued by the exposé tonight on how the Najib’s administration intends to cheat in the coming General Election. This is what a lot of people believe will happen, but how?

Part of the plot will be revealed by several key people who have been involved in studying the electoral process and matching it against the current development. Instead of revamping the electoral machinery to make it cleaner and fairer, the Najib’s administration has recently pushed for the amendments to the Election Offence Act 1952.

After six months of working closely with the PSC on Clean and Fair Election, Tindak Malaysia has decided that it has to wash the dirty linen of the Election Commission in public.

To be fair, the EC chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Yusof, who recently claimed that the electoral roll is one of the CLEANEST IN THE WORLD, has also been invited along to defend his case.

This is a chance of a lifetime for you to listen to the exposé that will totally change your perception. Don’t miss it!

You will not be able to get the full story from the online media, because some things cannot be reported. Neither will you be able to able to get any story from the mainstream media because they will not be able to report the event.

So, attend the exposé meeting tonight to listen to the non-politicians speak tonight:

Date: 24 April 2012 (Tuesday)
Time: 8.30 PM
Venue: Dewan Sivik PJ (PJ CIVIC CENTRE)
Entrance fee is RM50 but this too has been waived. Please pass it on. We are fighting with time.

Location map: Dewan Sivik (Civic Center) Petaling Jaya

View Larger Map

UMNO Leader's son caught in gerrymandering is Mohd Asri

The face of the UMNO leader son who conspired with EC and NRD in gerrymandering is Muhamad Asri, son of Datuk Yaakub Md Amin, Malacca exco in charge of religion and Adun Umno Sungai Udang.



He claimed that there is nothing wrong in helping change voter addresses, but I had been helping with voter registration and I know that we can only help register new voters, not change addresses of existing voters. That we have to tell them to go to the Post Office.

Extract from Free Malaysia Today, Dakwaan DAP: Exco Umno mengakui anak terlibat:

Exco Agama kerajaan Melaka, Datuk Yaakub Md Amin mengesahkan anak lelakinya terbabit dengan program mendaftarkan pengundi baru di Universiti Teknikal Melaka (UTEM).

“Mengapa mereka (pembangkang) boleh buat daftar di mana saja tetapi anak saya tidak boleh. Ini program budak-budak universiti, apa yang salahnya,”

Malaysians institutions has lost all credibility

The latest regarding that UMNO NRD EC electoral fraud caught on video? is the NRD (National Registration Department) of Malacca claiming that the university had invited NRD to help change student addresses.

They however could not explain controversial statements in the video, that suggest the NRD is helping change the addresses temporarily to give BN an advantage in the coming general election, said to be around the corner.

These government institutions have lost all credibility by this attempt to cover up their shenanigans conspiring with UMNO and EC in this gerrymandering exercise.

It would have been better if they had just shut their mouth.

Here is a clearer photo of the UMNO Malacca councillor's son:

EC Chief Abdul Aziz will preside over the dirtiest election ever

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The Election Commission Chief Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof should be held responsible for the shocking amendments to the Election Offenses Act.

He made a fool of himself by declaring that Malaysia's Electoral Roll is the cleanest in the world but almost immediately, a secretly captured video showed EC officials conspiring with an UMNO leader's son and the NRD (National Registration Department) to commit gerrymandering in Malacca.

BERSIH 3.0 led by Ambiga is demanding he and the rest of EC resign.

Malaysians, please let us all work together to help makes that happen by attending BERSIH 3.0 Jom Duduk Bantah this coming April 28 at Dataran Merdeka.

Malaysians must participate in BERSIH 3.0

I was at the first BERSIH protest in 2007. I missed BERSIH 2.0 because of an impending trip to Google Campus in Mountainview, California. Come April 28 baring unforseen circumstances, I will be at BERSIH 3.0 to help put pressure to put further pressure on the EC and the federal government for reforms and clean and fair election.

And Malaysians must join us. Why? Because the EC (Election Commission) and the UMNO/BN federal government will never willingly give us a really free and fair election and the 13^th General Election will as expected be the dirtiest election in history.

They have rammed through the amendments of the Election Offences Act, 1954 together with another 7 bills and have thus resulted in monitoring and prevention of electoral fraud very very difficult if not impossible.

What are those changes?

1. cannot establish identity of voter anywhere in constituency, 5k fine or jail
2. no barung agent (monitoring agents) at registration booth
3. polling and counting agents only allowed at time stipulated by EC
4. deleted provision for all printed documents to have printer & publisher name & address




Malaysians Bangkit (Malaysians Arise)!!!

UMNO NRD EC electoral fraud caught on video?

DAP Ayer Keroh ADUN Khoo Poay Tiong has revealed a secretly taped video clip purportly showing an UMNO leader's son, NRD (National Registration Dept) and EC (Election Commission) officials conspiring to pursuade university students to change their addresses and to transfer their voting place to the Bukit Katil parliamentary constituency which is a marginal seat.

These images captured from the video clip could be their photos:

Face of UMNO leader son?

Face of NRD or EC official?

Here is the video clip:

Selangor made it possible to report dubious voters in electoral roll

Malaysians need to pay RM50 in order to report a single voter to the EC (Election Commission). This will make it very taxing on the wallet for those individuals or groups to report a long list of dubious voters, and there are reports of very numerous dubious voters.

Batang Kali constituency experienced a 40% increase in voters in the electoral roll. Even setting aside your distrust of EC and UMNO/BN, can you believe that it is via genuine registration of genuine and not phantom voters?

Read for yourself to see how serious about SSG (Selangor State Government) about striving for a clean electoral below in the article Selangor to pump RM5mil into war on dubious voters courtesy of Malaysiakini:

Selangor to pump RM5mil into war on dubious voters

Leven Woon
6:49PM Apr 19, 2012

The Selangor government will launch a "Selangorku Bersih" programme involving state civil servants and village heads to ensure that the electoral roll in the state is clean and in order.
Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim told the media after a meeting with the Election Commission that the programme would be a "measure from the state to help EC to clean up its electoral roll in Selangor".
Khalid said the state would use funds for this from the RM5 million grant set aside under the Geran Selangorku scheme to enable any individual or party to raise objections on dubious voters in the electoral roll.
Khalid, Selangor assembly speaker Teng Chang Khim and a delegation of Selangor exco members were at the EC headquarters in Putrajaya today for a briefing by the commission and to discuss issues pertaining to the movement of voters' polling stations without their knowledge.

Pakatan Rakyat had claimed that as of December 2011, there has been a sudden rise in the number of voters in the state, amounting to about half a million individuals or 35 percent of Selangor voters.
Coalition supremo Anwar Ibrahim had said Selangor will not go for its state-level polls until the matter is resolved.
When asked about this today, Khalid said he did not raise the matter to the EC today because it is beyond EC’s jurisdiction to decide when the state is to hold an election.
Briefing reaffirms existence of voter spike
Meanwhile, Selangor senior exco member Teresa Kok said that the EC’s briefing has reaffirmed the existence of a spike in dubious voters.
“In Batang Kali (state) constituency alone, there is a 40 percent spike of new voters since 2008, making the total number of voters to 39,928 now.
“But Batang Kali is a semi-rural constituency, where  did the voters come from?” she said.
She added that the neighbouring Kuala Kubu Baru state constituency had not recorded such a significant increase.
Besides Batang Kali, Bukit Lanjan has also recorded a 34 percent increase in voters, followed by Paya Jaras with 31 percent.
Asked about the claim that a large number of East Malaysians have registered themselves as voters in Selangor, Khalid said the EC has given the explanation that it is done according to procedure.
“We were told that eligible voters can register to vote in Selangor. The validity is determined upon application for registration,” he said.
Khalid said he tried to press for exact figures on  the matter, but was told it is being tabulated.
“The EC said the figures are still being tabulated because there is a surge of voters.
“It said that on March 30 alone, 5,000 people were registered to vote in Selangor,” he said.
On his own voting status, Khalid said he has applied to move his voting constituency from  Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur to Ijok, Selangor.
Khalid also dismissed the theory by an Umno blogger that being a KL voter would disqualify him from contesting a state seat if he fails to change his voting constituency, saying that the criteria examined is the address on the identity card.
When asked about the MCA’s accusations that Selangor deferment of its elections is a stunt to siphon its money to campaign activities elsewhere, Khalid declined to comment.
Exco member Halimah Ali, who was standing beside Khalid, then quickly went to his defence, quipping  that “even the selangor exco has found it hard to get a cent from the government”.

Election Commission conducting massive fraud?

Anwar Ibrahim today exposed what he claimed to be the method which the Election Commission of Malaysia conducts "massive fraud" in manipulating the voters roll by giving an example.

Anwar said this was how they register an existing voter in another constituency by using the same identity card number but adds a forward slash / to the end of the IC number.

Anwar furnished a printout of a voter, Zarina binti Abu Tausi, IC. No. 81100101536 registered in the polling district Desa Rahmat in Johor.

The printout showed Zarina also registered in polling distric of Seri Mahkota in Pahang but with IC No. 811001015036/ which is the same number as above except with that forward slash / at the end of the IC number.

I did a search myself at EC's Electoral Roll Checking and verified that what Anwar claimed is correct.

Below is the screen shot of what I found and you can do the check yourself over at EC's Electoral Roll Checking. I did the check on Thursday 22 March 2011 at 3pm. If there are no changes, you should find the same result:

How votes are bought in Malaysia and the polling booth orientation (and how to spoil your vote)

Update: for those whose votes have been bought (because they badly needed the money) as explained in the article below and you are concerned at the terrible state that Malaysia is in and want to do your part, spoil the pre-marked ballot paper that had been given to you by crossing the other box or boxes as any ballot paper with more than 1 cross (mark) will be considered as spoilt and will not count. Perhaps this is why sometimes we get an unusual amount of spoilt votes?

During my training as a polling and counting agent for the 2008 elections, my trainer explained to me how votes are bought by the corrupt UMNO/BN.

It all starts with a voter going in to the polling station with a pre-marked fake polling ballot in favor of UMNO/BN candidate hidden in his pocket and putting that pre-marked voting slip into the ballot box, then taking out the unmarked voting slip out of the polling station. However, first I will explain how the much much earlier orientation of the privacy shield at the polling booth makes cheating very difficult.

Earlier orientation of privacy shield at polling booth which makes buying of votes difficult

It seemed some time in the past, the privacy shield was orientated away from the polling agent and so when the voter is at the polling booth, his back is facing the polling agent. See Figure 1 below (click to enlarge):

Figure 1: Earlier layout of privacy shield and polling station which made bying of votes difficult

So it seems that polling agents will be able to observe the back of the voter at the polling booth and while no person other than the voter himself will be able to see him marking the ballot slip, he will be unable to take out the pre-marked voting slip from his pocket and hide the real unmarked polling slip in his pocket without being observed, put the fake pre-marked ballot slip into the ballot box and take the unmarked genuine polling slip out of the polling station.

Orientation of privacy shield to facilitate cheating

In the 2008 and prior general elections, the privacy shield was deliberately reoriented to face the polling agents and the voter's back is facing away from the polling agents can see only the legs of the voter while the backside and upper body is hidden from the view of the polling agents (see figure below, click to enlarge):

Figure 2: Orientation of privacy shield 2008 and "prior" which enables cheating

Thus to start off, a cooperating voter is given a fake pre-marked (in favor of BN) polling slip to hide in his pocket, walks into the polling station and is given a genuine polling slip, take the slip to the polling booth and now his back is facing away from polling agents and only his legs are visible.

He hides the unmarked genuine polling slip into his pocket unseen by the agents, take the pre-marked false ballot slip and put it into the ballot box and walks out of the polling station unhindered.

At a secret location the first voter exchanged the unmarked genuine polling slip for a pre-arranged sum of money.

The genuine polling slip is pre-marked in favor of UMNO/BN and is given to the next voter with instruction to put that into the ballot box and take out the unmarked ballot slip in order to collect his loot.

The second bought voter goes in and is given a genuine unmarked polling slip, goes to the polling booth and again hide the unmarked polling slip in his pocket unseen, goes to the ballot box, puts in the pre-marked slip and walks out of the polling station with the unmarked polling slip (genuine) undetected.

Again at the secret location, he exchange the unmarked polling slip for money and that unmarked polling slip is pre-marked for the next voter and the whole process is repeated until the end of polling.

Thus in this way the person/party who wants to buy votes ensure that the bought voter actually vote for the selected candidate.

The "new" orientation of the privacy shield as shown in NST

I saw the new arrangement of the polling station in New Straits Times and it is shown with the original orientation of the privacy shield facing away from the polling agents with the whole of the back of the voter visible to the polling agents which must be enforced at all cost. This is as it should be and and was the orientation used in the distant past (see figure below):

Previous and "new" layout of polling booth and polling station

Actually, the diagram in NST may be slightly different from the above which is reproduced from memory, but the essential relation of the polling agents, the voter and the privacy shield is as shown. That diagram I believe is given by the Election Commission. If anyone has that diagram given by the Election Commission anywhere on the web, hope you can leave the URL in a comment below.

Thus I hope those doing the training for the upcoming 13^th General Election should inform the potential polling agents and all polling agents must ensure that this orientation of the privacy shield is adhered to.

Please spread this information to as many people as you can to reduce buying of votes.

Petition for a Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (RCER) in Malaysia

I plea (beg) all concerned Malaysians to sign this online petition:

Petition for a Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (RCER) in Malaysia. Here is one of the many reasons why you should sign the petition:

I recently attended polling and counting agent training course (as a refresher) and heard how election can be manipulated. Included was votes can be bought to tip the scale in favor of a candidate with the money and willingness to buy votes.

The process start with giving a false pre-marked ballot paper to a voter with instruction to smuggle out his blank ballot paper and substitude it with the false pre-marked ballot paper and put that into the ballot paper instead. Then the process below will start:

What can happen is a voter can enter a polling stream (room) with pre-marked ballots (one for the Parliament, one for the State), at the shielded booth to mark the ballot papers, put the real, still unmarked ballot papers in his or her pocket, walk to the ballot boxes, drops in the marked ballot boxes, walk out of the voting center, mark the real ballot papers, hand them over to a voter (paided or volunteer) who then next walk into his polling stream (room) repeat the same process, walk out of the polling center, hand over the unmarked ballot papers to the manipulator, get paid, and the process goes on until one is caught. Then the cycle will have to be started again.

We were told that previously, this was more difficult because at the place where the voter marks the ballot papers, his or her backside will be facing the polling agents and it was difficult to pocket the ballot papers without being seen. See diagram below:

A box to show the ballot boxes in the center had been unfortunately left out from the diagram. You have to use your imagination and add that in.

However, now the arrangement had been changed and the backside of the voter when marking the ballot papers will no longer be facing the polling agents and thus not visible. See diagram below:

A box to show the ballot boxes in the center had been unfortunately left out from the diagram. You have to use your imagination and add that in.

I was also told about a man who told his colleague he must return to Johore to vote. The reason he gave was his brother had already committed his vote to such an arrangement. With this current arrangement of the polling stream (room), such practices are difficult to spot.

Further, there is backtracking by the Election Commission on the use of indelible ink on fingernails of voters who had already voted. It then becomes very difficult for a person to vote more than once. Now that this indelible ink will no longer be used, I understand it is easy for phantom voters to operate. How I am not sure. I will try to find out, and if I have information, I will update this blog.