THE STAR – The Malaysian Election Commission (EC) must look at easing the voting system to avoid low voter turnout in the coming 15th general elections (GE15).
Improvements in postal and early voting systems were those that were viable to be carried out especially when COVID-19 pandemic was still a risk, said Bersih steering committee chairman Thomas Fann.
“One way is to expand absentee voting rights to east Malaysians who are living in Peninsular Malaysia, so they don’t have to travel through the South China Sea (to fly back to their hometowns), but can vote as early voters in the Peninsular. That is something EC can do.
“For postal votes itself, the EC can use new technology – in other words allow people to download ballots electronically from the MySPR website so that they can print out and mail it back to their respective returning officer.
“They have to do this first before they start looking at e-voting,” he said when met at the townhall and forum on voters supremacy organised by Bersih yesterday.
The challenge for the next GE was to increase turn up, said Fann, which EC must take seriously.
“If they don’t improve on this, voter turnout would be low like 55 per cent or 60 per cent, which is unacceptable,” he added.
