CONSIDER AUTOMATIC VOTERS REGISTRATION FOR MALAYSIAN ABOVE 21 YEARS

I refer to the statement today by Datuk Wira Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, Election Commission (EC) Deputy Chairman that there are some 28% or 4.39 million Malaysians over the age of 21years old who have yet to register as voters as of end of last year.

The EC Deputy Chairman also said that the EC would intensify their effort to register voters through their various activities, including cooperation with non-governmental organizations and appointing deputy registrars from political parties.

With due respect and notwithstanding the EC’s continuous effort, the statistics of non-registration of Malaysians as voters would always repeat themselves.

The pertinent question that the Election Commission should ask is why do Malaysians have to register themselves as voters?
Every Malaysians should have the right to vote upon attaining the age of 21 years old.

The existence of the current manual registration system would only serve to deprive certain Malaysians from voting in the General Elections. Currently, those unfortunate people stand at 28% of all Malaysians, from the statistics given as of end of last year.

Furthermore, the manual registration of Malaysians as voters is a waste of national resources and time.

It is time now for the Election Commission to consider studying ways to improve the current system to enable all Malaysians to vote.

As such, I would like to suggest to the Election Commission to consider the implementation of an automatic voter registration for all Malaysians who attain the age of 21 years old, based on the information obtained from the National Registration Department (NRD).

The default constituency should be based on the last known address given by the NRD unless it is updated by the voter.