KUCHING: Absentee voting should be allowed for Sarawakians residing in Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah during the upcoming 12th state election.
The Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) appealed to the Election Commission (EC) following its refusal to extend any form of absentee voting to these Sarawakian voters.
“We estimate that there are about 250,000 Sarawakians who live and work in Peninsular Malaysia and this number rises when we include Sabah,” said the organisation in a joint statement on Monday (Nov 15).
“Apart from the prohibitive cost of air fares and land transport to return to vote in their hometowns and villages, they have to apply for leave from work and risk falling ill due to Covid-19 infection while travelling through crowded airports, planes and hired seats in private cars,” it added.
It confirmed that, in a recent online poll by Bersih Sarawak, a large majority of Sarawakians (89 per cent) wished to be given the right to vote in the state election but from their place of work and domicile in the peninsula or Sabah.
“By refusing to make any provision for the voters to vote from the state they are living in, the EC has failed to fulfil one of its primary obligations as an election management body which is to ensure credible levels of voter participation in an election,” it noted.
The EC, it argued, needs to do much better than how it is presently performing.
“Simply abdicating its constitutional authority and responsibilities to oversee and manage elections to the Ministry of Health (MoH) is not acceptable,” it said.
The organisation said that Bersih had in the past made the proposals and demands known to the EC with regard to the voters.
It said voters had the right to vote by post which was easier to achieve by way of a simple gazette pursuant to one of the provisions in the Postal Voting Regulations.
Alternatively, it suggested that voters be given the right to vote by way of voting in advance at special polling centres set up in at least, one major town in each state.
“They will need to register themselves and apply to be on that special electoral roll; turn up on Advance Polling Day and vote in person. Their vote will then be counted towards their registered constituency in Sarawak,” it explained.
