Youth volunteers want EC to learn from postal ballot movement

GE15 | Having worked tirelessly to collect, sort, and deliver postal ballots of overseas Malaysians, VoteMalaysia today said it had to step up due to the Electoral Commission’s (EC) failure to address problems in the postal voting system.

Speaking to the media while sorting ballots at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH), the NGO coalition said it is time for the EC to undergo urgent reform.

“We saw the failures in GE14, we predicted it again for GE15. Why can’t they just be fair to all Malaysians? Not just the ones at home, but including those who are all over the world?” said Tharma Pillai, advocacy director of Undi 18, the NGO which founded VoteMalaysia.

“There are many ways the EC can improve the postal votes system but they’re not doing anything about it. Yet, at the end of the day, it is the rakyat who is helping. The EC needs to be reformed,” he said during a press conference.

VoteMalaysia this morning said it is sorting some 30,000 ballot papers which were hand-carried by Malaysians on passenger flights from destinations across the globe, to be picked up by runners who will send them to returning officers across Malaysia.

The final number of ballots processed by VoteMalaysia will be announced on social media at 10pm, with more ballots making their way to KLSCAH at press time.

The ballots need to be sent to returning officers at the various polling stations before voting closes tomorrow evening.

Jonathan Lee, who coordinated the collection in more than 50 points in the United Kingdom and Ireland, said the short registration period and turnaround time to return postal ballots is a major obstacle for overseas voters.

“They only gave overseas citizens three days to register as postal voters and 10 days to fill up and send their ballots back to the officers.

“Until Nov 15, many people in the UK and Ireland still had not received anything. One man in Dubai even tracked his ballot paper and it was only going to arrive on Nov 19, on polling day.

“So many mistakes and issues popped up that, when we asked the officers why these things were happening, they could not give us proper answers,” Lee said.

A dedicated system

This afternoon, Malaysiakini sighted volunteers in black VoteMalaysia T-shirts busy organising thousands of ballots at KLSCAH while patriotic tunes blared in the background.

The volunteers had been sorting ballots in envelopes and putting them in designated cardboard boxes since 10pm last night.

Most volunteers were in their early 20s, with many experiencing voting for the first time in GE15.

Undi18 programme associate Winsley Ong explained the process.

“We have international associates in countries like the United Kingdom for example, and these associates and their groups have opened polling centres (sic) all over the country for Malaysians to submit their ballot papers.

“Then we bring it back here, per batch, where we will organise (the ballots) according to the constituencies. Once that is done, we will pack up the boxes and have selected volunteers to deliver them to the designated polling stations,” said Ong.

United Kingdom and Ireland Malaysian Law Students’ Union vice-president Kai Ching said extra care is taken to ensure the ballots are sent to the right constituency.

To ensure that, postal voters who send their ballots through the VoteMalaysia network have to fill in a “compliance form”, which the volunteers have to take photos of and send back as proof of the ballots’ departure and arrival. The volunteers also set up a system to collect complaints.

The more, the merrier

After working overnight, the NGOs this morning realised they needed to hasten the process and took to social media to recruit more people.

By 12.30pm, the hall was filled with more than 100 volunteers, some kneeling or hunched over, working hard at sorting the ballot papers by hand.

By 3.20pm, they had sorted close to two-thirds of the ballots and were expecting more to come in later.

One volunteer, who wished to be known as Henry, said this would not be possible 10 years ago when the costs of international travel and communications were more prohibitive.

“Ballot papers often went missing, received too late to be counted, or were damaged during delivery. My friends in Australia and the UK were relying on their hometown neighbours, relatives, and friends to pass their ballots to the polling stations.

“People who could not afford to fly home included students and adults who already have a lot of financial stress. In the end, they just gave up and decided not to vote because it was too hard and confusing.

“But I now see what these kids are doing. I’m sure all those outside of Malaysia right now are very grateful,” said Henry.

The first batch of ballots that left KLSCAH went out to Kota Kinabalu and Tawau in Sabah as well as to Kuching in Sarawak. More went out as the day progressed.

Luggage cases on wheels, which were filled with ballot papers, were rolled out of the hall by volunteers to the sounds of applause and well wishes.

Elderly folk who heeded the call to volunteer turned up to find there were already enough people working, so they sat on chairs and looked on in admiration.

As batches of ballots arrived, they would get up from their chairs to gleefully take videos of the working youths while simultaneously praising their dedication.

We expect the EC do this next time

VoteMalaysia is the brainchild of frustrated youth organisations whose members experienced the nail-biting anxiety of voting via post when they were students overseas during GE14.

Due to the 11-day campaign period then, they had trouble receiving and returning ballots in time. Other voters encountered technical difficulties when registering as postal voters or received smudged ballots.

To avoid the same problems this time, the organisations reached out to their networks in Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Turkey, Japan, Germany, Singapore, Indonesia, and China to come up with this solution.

While they have been roundly praised, Pillai hopes not to repeat the endeavour in coming elections.

“It’s the EC’s job to do this, not ours. But we’re doing it because they’re constantly repeating past problems.

“I’m not here to bash them. Instead, I want the EC to learn from this. Not just our efforts, but the entire country’s efforts to help the people.”

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