Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof admitted today that there are errors in the electoral roll, but claimed these represented just 0.0001 percent of the total 12.4 million registered voters.

"Although the number is small, just 0.0001 percent compared with 12.4 million (voters), but still we are cleaning it every day," he told a press conference at the EC headquarters in Putrajaya this afternoon.

NONE Abdul Aziz was responding to recent media articles reporting various flaws that have been found in the electoral roll, including voters with double identities , a voter wrongly named as ' Kg Baru ' and voters with MyKad numbers that do not exist .

"Come on, we are human being, we make mistakes... reporters sometimes also report wrongly. Same thing with my clerks... Please don't highlight (our mistakes), it is not fair."

He also ticked off the opposition and Internet media for exaggerating what he called “minor errors”.

"Hopefully those who are interested to clean the electoral roll with us - PAS, and another one who always calls us is Malaysiakini , I don't know you (its reporters) are here or not - if you have the figures, send them to us and we will confirm the figures. Why not we clean up (the roll) together?

"But (instead) they report in the media, one of two cases, (and make a fuss over that) and they blow it up, making it seem like three quarters of the roll is dirty; but the actual number is very small," claimed Abdul Aziz.

The press conference was called after Abdul Aziz and other election commissioners' meeting with members of Association for the Promotion of Human Rights (Proham), an NGO formed by former commissioners of human rights commission Suhakam, to listen to their recommendations on electoral reform.

Abdul Aziz said the EC is willing to meet with anyone intending to  improve the electoral system, including Bersih 2.0 although it had called a street demonstration on July 9 to pressure the electoral body.

However, he reminded the electoral reform movement not to set any condition and "put a gun to my head" during the meeting.

"Yes, they've already written a letter to us, we will fix the time and date when we'll be ready... I don't know (whether they will put gun to my head), but I told them better don't do that.

"You can suggest anything, but some suggestions we may agree to, some we may not. Don't expect us to agree to everything, and if we don't agree, (don't say that) we must do this (and that), this is not good," he said.

'They didn't put a gun to my head'

He commended Proham for not putting any condition during the meeting, "they didn’t put a gun to my head, we had a good discussion".

Without naming Bersih 2.0, Abdul Aziz hinted that the coalition has been issuing contradicting statements on the electoral roll flaws.

"I know somebody wanted to sue us, but at the same time, the same group asked us to clean up the electoral roll, how to clean?"

In an interview with Malaysiakini last week, Bersih 2.0 chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan said the coalition is mulling  taking the EC to court over its knee-jerk reaction to 'clean' the electoral roll after irregularities were highlighted by the media in the past two weeks.

Whenever an irregularity was unearthed, the EC would scramble to correct it, either by arbitrarily changing the relevant voters' details or deleting their names from the electoral roll.

However, Abdul Aziz stressed that his commission is entitled by the election laws to remove names from the electoral roll under the circumstances listed below:

  • After confirmation from the National Registration Department (NRD) that a voter has died;
  • When a voter renounces his or her Malaysian citizenship;
  • When a voter has a double registration in the electoral roll due to various reasons. The non-active identity will be removed once verified by the NRD;
  • Voters with unusually old such as 100 years will be removed after consultation with the NRD; and,
  • Voters with criminal conviction.
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