Mismah-gate: EC’s denial casts further doubts on veracity of electoral roll
Aug 3, 2011
The Election Commission Chairman Abdul Aziz Yusof’s response to the Mismah-gate shocker is inadequate and unacceptable because it is based purely on speculation without facts. Abdul Aziz’s official explanation that the NRD fails to inform the public including millions of Malaysian voters how such a scandalous blunder could have happened.
Instead of imagining petty excuses for the National Registration Department, the EC is duty-bound to ensure the veracity of the nation’s electoral rolls. This incident has demonstrated the chronic lack of coordination between government departments, which severely impacts public confidence in the sanctity of our elections.
The EC says there is no way a non-citizen can be registered as a voter and that every new application is cross-checked with the NRD’s identity database. However, it is evident that the NRD’s online verification system did in fact return Mismah’s status as a holder of a red MyPR card when before it was later changed to a blue MyKad. It now appears that Mismah is not an isolated case but involves scores of similar persons whose citizenship status were upgraded in a matter of hours yesterday.
The EC and NRD cannot expect genuine Malaysian voters to believe this was merely a case of an outdated database. This explanation is unhelpful because it is not based on any investigation of facts. If the NRD database is not foolproof, how then can the EC’s electoral rolls, which are totally dependent on NRD, be clean? If the NRD can arbitrarily grant citizenships to non-citizens just to validate their voter registration, this is daylight robbery of genuine citizens’ right to fair elections.
To put it bluntly, are foreigners being made new voters before GE13? I appeal to the EC and NRD to put on record the number of new citizens that have been made new voters in the last three years. Malaysian voters have a right to know if there has been a deviation in the trend. I certainly hope our sacred government institutions are not padding our electoral rolls with alien voters just to return a corrupt regime to power.
Chow Kon Yeow
Member of Parliament, Tanjong.
Penang State Exco Member and State Assemblyperson, Padang Kota.
Penang DAP State Chairman
Daftarlah Sebagai Rakan DAP! 
http://greenstate.penang.gov.my
