The Borneo Post: 9 March 2008
Putra Jaya: The Election Commission (EC) will conduct an investigation into allegations regarding names missing from the voters list and those who claimed their names were used by others in the voting process.
EC Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said he considered the allegations as serious, adding that the commission had received several complaints on the matter.
He has directed EC Secretary Datuk Kamaruzaman Mohd Noor to carry out an audit.
Abdul Rashid said the matter was reported to the EC through the state offices as well as retaining officers on the ground.
“We received a few hundred complaints and the secretary will do an auditing to find out what has really occurred,” he said at a media conference here Saturday.
He urged those affected to come forward and lodge complaints to the EC so that the commission could get to the root of the problem.
“We have to know also, but we believe there is no hanky panky here. We use the IT (information technology) system and sometimes the system works well and sometimes it deceived us in a way,” he said.
“But maybe it’s the weakness of the operators, we have to know.”
Abdul Rashid expressed regret over the matter which caused voters to lose the right to vote, promising to investigate and he was confident that there was an answer for it.
“We feel very sorry for that if it is true, that certain names were missing for no obvious reason but give us a bit of time,” he said.
“We have done our best. Don’t be too angry with us, we will find the answer and we will explain.”
On the transparent ballot boxes which were used for the first time in the general election, Abdul Rashid said it was effective and none of the parties criticised the use of the boxes which reflected transparency in the whole election.
He said though the use of indelible ink on the fingers of voters was scrapped, it did not show that the election was not transparent.
“We have worked towards ensuring that the general election was conducted in a free and fair manner and I feel that we have achieved this aim,” he added.
Abdul Rashid said any party, which was not satisfied with the election process, could collect the information or proof to forward to court.
“The EC encourages parties which are not satisfied to go to court through an election petition,” he said. – Bernama