Malaysians overseas upset ballot papers yet to arrive

SHAH ALAM - Several Malaysian postal voters residing overseas have taken to Twitter to express their disappointment that they still have not received their ballot papers for the upcoming 15th General Election (GE15).

Some claimed they would only get their ballot papers on Nov 19, which would be the polling day.

Hence, they called for the Election Commission (EC) to address the issue.

One Twitter user @dharshinee_sk, expressed that it was “very disappointing!” to learn that the postal voting ballots would be sent out immediately after they had been produced by the returning officer (RO).

She called out the EC for not putting out a confirmed timeline and said that the EC should take responsibility for this, as if the ballots do not arrive on time, it was equivalent to denying one’s right to vote as a citizen of Malaysia.

“Do you know that it’ll take around four to seven days long for a post to reach Indonesia from Malaysia? And I’m talking about a nearby country here!” she stressed in her Tweet.

Another Malaysian, @saifuddin_amri, residing in Saudi Arabia suggested that the EC should allow overseas Malaysians to vote at their embassies or consulates instead of using postal voting ballots which would take a much longer time.

“The election would be over, and only then would I receive my ballot paper,” he joked.

He attached a screen capture of his postal voting ballot shipment details, showing that his ballot was expected to arrive on Nov 19 and that the shipment itself was made on Nov 11, eight days before the election day.

He also added that some of his friends, assumed to be overseas Malaysians as well, had already received their ballots and that it most likely depends on the RO of their constituencies.

Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) Central Executive Committee member Datin Dian Lee also called for the EC to respond to the issue of postal voters that have received their shipment tracking numbers, but the shipments themselves had yet to leave Malaysia.

Many Malaysians have since replied to Dian’s Twitter post with updates on their ballot papers.

User @DrCollinsSantha said, “I am in Spain and have not received any info whatsoever on the status of my ballot. I fear that I will not be able to exercise my right to vote this year due to such logistical complications.”

On their official website spr.gov.my, the EC stated that voters must mark the ballot and send it back right away to ensure that the ballot is received by the RO before 5.00 pm on election day.

They also detailed the ways for overseas Malaysian postal voters to check the status of postal voting ballot shipments.

All Malaysian citizens who were eligible to vote and resided overseas were eligible to apply for postal voting under Category 1B (Overseas).

Meanwhile, full-time students at institutes of higher education and civil servants residing overseas have been registered as absentee voters (PTH) and they do not need to apply for postal voting as they have been registered as postal voters automatically.