“MalaysiaKini.com reported finding 278 pairs of “twin” postal voters. We found 771 pairs!
With the luxury of having more time and data, we found 771 pairs of “twins” in the electoral roll gazetted on 2008 Feb 5! In other words, 771 army or police voters were registered twice, with slight variation in their army or police IC number, names, and year of birth. We searched only for IC numbers that differ by a leading zero, following the first alphabet, eg, T0123456 and T123456.

These could be genuine SPR mistakes. Perhaps when the police/army IC numbering system was expanded/upgraded by having a zero added in front, old registrations were not properly cleaned from the roll — mainly because of variation in name inputs and errors in year of birth information. Hopefully, after the MalaysiaKini report, SPR is now going through the roll to fix these problem registrations. We’ll see. We can keep a watch on this problem by checking on these twins listed in Tables D, E, and F below, against the current and future SPR’s voter verification Web page.
Better yet, the National Registration Department should eliminate the parallel IC system for police/army personnel, and issue them with a regular 12-digit IC. We’ll discuss this in the next blog. Additionally, SPR should eliminate the voter registration process, and allow all valid IC holders to vote. If you look carefully at the name variations and obvious errors listed below, it doesn’t make sense to add another layer of SPR procedure we call “voter registration” that will create difficult-to-trace errors such as these.
Most “twins” have the same name (with slight variation) and IC number, except for a leading “0”:

• These IC doppelgänger all involve army or military ICs starting with “T” or “R.”
• In Table D, we found 761 pair of related IC numbers, such as, “T0″+6 digits and “T”+6 digits.
• In Table E, we found another 2 pairs of T00+6 digits (total 9 character in length) and T0+6 digits, without corresponding T+6 digits. Given the small number of cases of “T00,” it looks like straight errors.
• In Tables F, we found another 8 pairs of police voters whose ICs start with “RF” but who have twins with ICs that start with “R0,” followed by matching 6 digits.
• Table D + Table E + Table F = 761 + 2 + 8 = 771 pairs of twins

In all Tables below, we display IC, names, year of birth (Tahunlahir), parliamentary code and name (NamaParlimen), to match the MalaysiaKiniReport.
Most “twins” involve slight variations in names.

• Contrary to the main theme here, we have also found 9 pairs of similar ICs but completely different names. We have excluded these from the 771 cases twins, since the names indicate they are different persons. However, since these ICs differ by only a single leading zero, it is likely that one of these two voters have had the IC number wrongly input. These 9 pairs are listed in Table A. Another odd case of RF-R0 IC pair that point to different persons is listed in Table G.
  Table A: 9 Pairs of Twin ICs but with Completely Different Names
  (These are not included in Table D)

  IC	Nama	Tahunlahir	Kodlokaliti	NamaParlimen
  R0144087	Mohamad Kamarulzaman B Hj Ahmad	1974	1981609705	Mambong
  R144087	Aruwandi Bin Salleh	1976	1981609705	Mambong
  T371479	Mohamed Zainuri B Embong	1963	0330107600	Besut
  T0371479	Farizah Binti Mohd Yatim	1968	0330107600	Besut
  T373190	Zulkifli Bin Shafie	1973	1180012439	Setiawangsa
  T0373190	Muhamed Afizan Bin Jaafar	1962	0330107600	Besut
  T0373649	Aidil Hisyam Bin Zakaria	1982	0852001613	Pekan
  T373649	Mohammad Azrul Khairy Bin Omar	1983	1660007606	Labuan
  T373875	Suhaimi Bin Hasim	1983	1200020601	Bukit Bintang
  T0373875	Suhaimi Udara Gong Kedak	1973	0330107600	Besut
  T536225	Hamdan Bin Sisan	1976	0883201438	Temerloh
  T0536225	Nor Aziah Bte Mat	1978	0883201438	Temerloh
  T717111	Abdullah Bin Takip	1972	1200020601	Bukit Bintang
  T0717111	Saliah Binti Mantaril	1978	1961205601	Stampin
  T717616	Rusli Bin Suraidi	1970	0420606635	Tasek Gelugor
  T0717616	Marliana Bt Abd Sahar	1975	1961205601	Stampin
  T0722813	Sudirman Bin Amran	1980	0852001618	Pekan
  T722813	Shaikh Mohd Azmi Bin Shaikh Yusof	1983	1125304401	Kuala Langat

• Name variations: Most twins have a “BIN vs B” kind of difference in name formats, or other abbreviation difference, such as “BINTI vs BT,” “S” and “Syed,” or “Dato” and without “Dato.” Others have variations in the spelling of the names. We have included these voters inside Table D’s 761 pairs, since they obviously refer to the same person. Table B below displays a few examples of name variations that should be pointing to the same person, considering the highly similar ICs and Year of Birth (Tahunlahir).
• This leads us to guess that the SPR has already gone through a campaign to catch most “exact -same-name” duplicate registrations, but has overlooked such “BIN-B” and other name variations that compound with the “T0-T” IC variation in registration.
• This problem highlights a high-priority restructure that the SPR should undertake: The SPR should standardize name abbreviations, such as BIN, B, BN, BINTI, BINTE, BT, BTE, back quote vs forward quote in names (‘ vs `), etc. There are too many duplicate names with minor variations such as these. We will cover this topic in another blog entry.
  Table B: Selected Examples of Twin ICs with VARIATIONS OF SAME NAME OR APPARENT ERRORS
  (These are included in Table D)

  IC	Nama	Tahunlahir	Kodlokaliti	NamaParlimen
  R133538	Yusra Binti Sulaiman	1979	1260405702	Jelebu
  R0133538	Jusra Bt Suliman	1979	1260205701	Jelebu
  R141463	Syed Abdul Rahman Bin Syed Hashim	1974	0821304705	Indera Mahkota
  R0141463	S Abdul Rahman B S Mohd Hashim	1974	0821304705	Indera Mahkota
  T200956	Dato’Nik Ismail Bin Nik Mohamed	1951	1180012600	Setiawangsa
  T0200956	Nik Ismail Bin Nik Mohamed	1960	1180012409	Setiawangsa
  T372673	Noorisma Eza Bin Mat Isa	1983	1180012600	Setiawangsa
  T0372673	Nooisma Eza Bin Mat Isa	1971	0330107600	Besut
  T372768	Alias Bin Awang	1968	1032905601	Puchong
  T0372768	Alyas Bin Awang	1968	0330107600	Besut
  T531368	Ridzuan B Paijo	1964	1180012475	Setiawangsa
  T0531368	Ridwan Bin Raizo	1963	1180012423	Setiawangsa
  T0533990	Azlee Bin Jahan	1968	1180012431	Setiawangsa
  T533990	A-Azlee B Jahan	1969	1180012431	Setiawangsa
  T0534084	Faafar Bin Abdul Rani	1968	1522914411	Kluang
  T534084	Jaafar B Abd Rani	1968	1522914411	Kluang
  T0534588	Auslan Binmashuri	1963	1180012423	Setiawangsa
  T534588	Auslan B Mashuri	1971	1323107404	Telok Kemang
  T0534644	Zamzuri Bin Isamail	1963	1150009410	Batu
  T534644	Mohd Zamzuri B Ismail	1979	1180012402	Setiawangsa

Some “twins” involve differences in Tahunlahir.

• Within pairs of “twins,” some show a variation in years of birth (SPR database “Tahunlahir” column).
• However, some (but not all) of these show the same Month and Day of birth, only different in Year of birth, according to the SPR verification Web page (our database only display the year of birth for army and police voters, not month and day). An example is IC R0144151 (9 Dec 76) vs R144151 (9 Dec 77).
• Table C displays several examples of twins with slightly different Tahunlahir.
• This phenomenon of slightly varying Tahunlahir is more worrying. Since all other clues (nearly identical IC, nearly identical name) point to the twins being actually the same person, it means the recording of Tahunlahir is careless at best.
• We fear the same problem of careless sourcing and checking of Tahunlahir information could be more widespread than postal voters, and exists for all voters in general. However, the 12-digit nature of the new IC will help eliminate duplicate civilian registration and verify birth day– all the more reason to abandon the army/police IC numbering scheme.
  Table C: Selected Examples of Twin ICs with Variation or Same Names, But also VARIATIONS IN TAHUNLAHIR
  (These are inlcuded in Table D)

  IC	Nama	Tahunlahir	Kodlokaliti	NamaParlimen
  R0133452	Laila Bt Yaakub	1977	1543306702	Mersing
  R133452	Laila Binti Yaakub	1971	0330204702	Besut
  R144151	Hadi Bin Lee	1977	0862407702	Maran
  R0144151	Hadi Bin Lee	1976	0862407702	Maran
  T200956	Dato’Nik Ismail Bin Nik Mohamed	1951	1180012600	Setiawangsa
  T0200956	Nik Ismail Bin Nik Mohamed	1960	1180012409	Setiawangsa
  T411006	Komaruldin Bin Mohd	1952	1240015402	Bandar Tun Razak
  T0411006	Kamaruldin Bin Mohd	1963	1180012450	Setiawangsa
  T411132	Hussain Bin Zainal Abidin	1952	1180012400	Setiawangsa
  T0411132	Hussain Bin Zainal Abidin	1963	1180012450	Setiawangsa
  T411262	Khairuddin Bin Mohd Ali	1953	1180012400	Setiawangsa
  T0411262	Khairuddin Bin Mohd Ali	1963	1180012402	Setiawangsa

Below is a long table and 2 short tables. Table D has 1522 rows (761×2), Table E has 4 rows (2×2), and Table F has 16 rows (8×2).
Table D: 761 Pairs of Twin Postal Voters Whose ICs are Different by “R0” vs “R,” or “T0” vs “T,” followed by pairs of the same 6 digits (1522 rows)