If these registrations receive no objection from local residents and are subsequently gazetted, whatever critics have to comment would have no effect unless the voters themselves apply for changes, he said.
"Just like the cases in Kampung Melayu Majidee, Johor, the EC's responsibility is to register qualified Malaysian citizens as voters based on the addresses on their identity cards at the time of their application and after verification with the Agency Link Up System (Alis) of the NRD.
"Assistant election registrars from government departments, NGOs, post offices, political parties, universities and others, who are appointed by the EC, can register any voter with code 71 and other codes if they apply.
"The
EC has no right to reject these registrations when Alis verifies the
addresses as valid and accurate as the ones recorded in NRD's database,"
he told Malaysiakini in a text message today.Abdul Aziz (right) was requested to respond to political researcher Ong Kian Ming's recent findings that many new voters registered by a government agency (not the EC) have code 71 in their identity numbers but without house numbers and street names.
Code 71 indicates that those voters were born outside of Malaysia.
Incomplete addresses
Previously the EC has argued that some addresses do not contain house numbers and street names because they are in rural areas, but Ong managed to prove that some of them are in urban areas such as Johor Bahru and Klang valley.
One of the examples cited by Ong is Kampung Melayu Majidee, which is located in a heavily urbanised area in Johor Bahru.
All the 56 foreign-born new voters in that area registered in the last three quarters, do not have house numbers and street names, while all 75 Malaysia-born new voters, except one, have complete addresses.
This lack of complete addresses make it difficult for political parties to trace these voters and verify if they are valid voters in the areas they are registered.
Ong further raised the question whether these dubious voters were given identity cards by the NRD to vote in the election.
In his reply, Abdul Aziz reiterated that only existing voters in the same constituency can object to the registration of foreign-born voters in the 14-day period after the supplementary electoral roll draft is published.
"So the comments made after the supplementary electoral roll draft has been gazetted cannot change anything to the master electoral roll, unless the voters themselves apply to make the changes," he said.
'Lack of sincerity'
In
an immediate response, Ong commented that Abdul Aziz's reply once again
showed the lack of sincerity on the part of the EC to be proactive in
cleaning up the electoral roll and to have consistent policies to
address shortcomings in the voter registration system."The Kampung Melayu Majidee cases clearly show concerted and organised efforts by a government agency, which is not the EC, to register non-Malaysian born voters using identity card addresses that did not have house numbers and street names.
"Rather
than questioning the NRD about the lack of addresses in the identity
cards of these voters, the EC chairperson has chosen instead to allow
these dubious voters to remain on the electoral roll," said Ong (left).On the issue of objecting to these dubious registrations, Ong stressed that only voters residing in the same constituency as those dubious voters are eligible to raise objections.
"Furthermore, one individual can only challenge up to 30 names in the electoral roll. And even then, one has to pay RM10 for every challenge issued. With these kinds of restrictions in place, it is very hard to stop the addition of more dodgy voters onto the electoral roll."
Ong claimed that in a closed door meeting attended by him, a member of the EC informed that the EC had rejected many voter applications in the past because they knew that the addresses in the identity cards of the voters in question did not exist.
"If this was the case, then why didn't the EC reject the voter applications from Kampung Melayu Majidee, especially since their own records show that almost all of the voters registered prior to 2008 in this locality had house numbers?
"As long as the EC continues to adopt an attitude that is not pro-active, the number of dodgy voters in the electoral roll will only grow and grow thereby making the job of cleaning up the roll in the future much more challenging," he added.
Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/199978
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