Candidate and their agents must keep a sharp eye on postal ballots

General Election 2004 special

Get involved

In ensuring free and fair elections in the country there is lot you can do.

In continuing from earlier article, I would now turn to the postal voting process. Monitoring the postal ballot process is very important, as many a time, it is the postal ballots that have suddenly swung the counting process in favour of a particular candidate.

Given the fact that in many places, the winning majority is in the tens, hundreds or just a thousand or more, these postal votes are important and need to be monitored to ensure that the 2004 elections is free and fair as far as postal balloting is concerned.

Postal voters - Who are they?

These are usually the police, military personnel, Election Commission officers and other staff who will be on duty during polling day, those who are not able to come to voting centres (that is, those who are overseas working/studying including embassy staff and out-of-town voters who have registered themselves as postal voters).

But alas, with the nomination date on 13 March 2004 and polling day on 21 March 2004 and given that the ballot papers will only be printed after nomination day and then sent out, most of the overseas and out-of-town voters will most likely not have the opportunity to exercise the right to vote. Try mailing a letter to an out-of-town friend with the instruction for him to reply immediately - how long will it take? What if he or she was overseas? I predict that for many of those out of the country, even if they mail the ballot papers back, it will not reach in time. That is why we need a longer campaign period - more than eight days, preferably at the very least 14 days.

It is sad that these Malaysians have not been given a reasonable opportunity to have their votes taken into account in the election. I sincerely hope that the EC took this into consideration, and I hope they did not say "It does not matter, they are but a few compared to the total number of voters."

Postal ballots

During the preparation for the mailing/sending out of the postal ballots, the candidates can have their postal ballot agents present. Note that a list of the postal voters is available and should be obtained by the agents for the candidate, and this is necessary when monitoring the sending out of the postal ballots.

(But in the Batu Constituency, the list of postal voters given to the candidates/their agents was very different from the list used by the Election Commission officials. Thus, ensuring that the postal ballots were only sent out to those in the said list was most difficult; really it was impossible. Complaints about the different lists provided and used fell on deaf ears, and no copies of the actual list used were provided to the agents of the candidate. This is from my personal experience in the last elections).

Sending out of the postal ballots

This is a very important stage that the candidate and his/her postal ballot agents must monitor.

The Election Commission officials, in the presence of the agents of candidates, will fill up the envelopes to be sent to the voters concerned.

It is essential to ensure that:

• the postal ballots are only sent to persons on the electoral roll concerned, who are listed.
• only one ballot paper is placed in each envelope addressed to the particular person. (Note that besides the ballot paper, instructions to the postal voter should also be put into those envelopes. Make sure no material that campaigns for a particular candidate is inserted into those envelopes.)
• there must be sufficient agents of the candidate present, as there will be different groups of Election Commission staff doing the filling up of the envelopes. There could be 10 to even 20 such groups, and thus there must be an equal number of agents of a candidate present.

(The work of inserting the postal ballot papers into the envelopes happens soon after nomination date, that is, after the ballot papers are printed.)

How are the ballot papers sent out

For police stations and military camps - They are sent in bags taken to the camps/stations and thereafter handed out to individuals to whom the envelopes containing the ballot papers are addressed.

The candidate/agents must insist or try to be present at this station/camp when the sealed envelopes are handed over to the individual voters.

Why? There have been rumours in the past that sometimes what happens is that some officer etc just opens the envelopes, marks the ballot and puts it all in the bag. Hence, the individual police or military personnel does not get to vote.

There have also been allegations that the officers handing out the envelopes sometimes insist on the recipients immediately opening the envelope and marking the ballot paper within sight of the officer. In such a scenario, the BN would most likely get all the votes, as the secrecy of one's vote not assured and in the police/military what is ordered is followed.

There are allegations of things that have happened in the past. But nothing seems to have come of it in the form of prosecutions. Nonetheless, the Election Commission has noted this and there have been some changes for the better. Alas, the good EC officials cannot be everywhere at the same time.

With regard to those overseas voters, the envelopes containing the postal ballots are sent out by post.

Sending back the postal ballots

In the past and even in the last election, in the various police stations and/or military camps there is placed a bag in which the voters can deposit their votes. This is then sent back to the Election Commission.

But the police and military personnel and any other postal voter can also individually post back their ballot papers. And in the last election, we saw a lot of police and military personnel posting back their ballot papers.

Counting of the postal ballots

Again here, the agents of the candidate is present. The counting is done at the same time as the counting is being done in all other polling stations/centres.

The only additional step involved in the counting of the postal ballots is the opening of the sealed envelopes containing the marked ballot papers. It is important to ensure that there is only one ballot paper in each envelope

All ballot papers removed from the sealed envelopes will be placed in a tray/box, and only after all the envelopes and the ballot papers are removed will the counting process start.

The counting process is similar to what happens in all other counting stations. See previous article.

Monitoring postal ballots: other matters

If you know any relatives, friends, police/military personnel who are in the postal voters' list, find out whether they received the sealed envelopes containing postal ballot. Also find out whether they sent back their marked ballot papers in sealed envelopes.

Tell them also that they can post it back on their own and that they not have to rely on the boxes/bags placed in the military camps and police stations.

The above is based on my experience over the past few elections. There may have been some changes, but I am not aware of any.

Charles Hector

Now e-mail us and tell us what you think. Your comments might be published in the Letters section of our print magazine, Aliran Monthly.

Alternatively, post your comments to the message board.