Electoral Commission should implement automatic voter registration, not hand out freebies

Bersih 2.0 notes the Electoral Commission’s new campaign with AirAsia and Sinar Harian in offering newly registered voters a chance to win free flights.

However, we question the need to offer gifts to entice people to register to vote when it is the commission’s basic duty to do so in the first place.

Instead of offering freebies, the commission should focus their resources on implementing automatic voter registration, thus eradicating the need for voter registration drives completely. Automatic voter registration will be electronically linked with the National Registration Department and will eliminate lack of addresses, duplicate entries, as well as remove deceased persons, and other dubious entries from the electoral roll.

The Electoral Commission has not yet engaged with Bersih 2.0 this issue, which we have been pushing for since our inception.

Furthermore, the commission is playing Jekyll and Hyde in their actions. They allow baseless objections against new voters, revoked political party’s assistant registrar officers (AROs) after the last general election and complicate and lengthen the process of acquiring assistant registrar officer status making them a scarce resource.

They have placed obstacles and restrictions in the way of registering new voters; yet now they are giving rewards to coax more people to register to vote.

If the commission stays consistent in their goals, they should be supporting voter registration campaigns regardless of name or brand and this includes our U Campaign. In fact, Bersih 2.0 wrote to the commission recently asking for support and resources for our campaign, including requesting approval of at least 20 assistant registrar officers from Bersih 2.0 to speed up voter registration. We have not yet heard back from them.

While the commission is now seemingly finally doing their job of registering voters, Bersih 2.0 urges them to seriously consider implementing automatic voter registration before any state or national elections. We should not have to resort to handing out freebies to people for them to exercise their basic democratic right.

Bersih 2.0 steering committee members

The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.

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