Global Bersih said at present Malaysians abroad only have a short time frame to register as overseas postal voters before each election. — Photo from globalbersih.org
KUCHING (June 2): Global Bersih has called on the Election Commission (EC) to immediately open online registration for overseas postal voting in the upcoming state elections for Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, and Penang.
This echoed the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections’ (Bersih) media statement yesterday.
At present, Global Bersih said Malaysians abroad only have a short time frame to register as overseas postal voters before each election.
In the last 15th general elections (GE15), the movement noted that overseas Malaysians only had 14 days to register as postal voters.
“This short time frame also puts pressure on EC staff to process the applications. According to Bersih, the EC can only handle up to 10,000 postal vote applications without running into severe backlogs and delays using the current process.
“With the continuing increase in the number of Malaysians voting from outside Malaysia, EC should extend the period to register as overseas postal voters to between six months and one year before the projected dates for future elections,” Global Bersih said in a statement today.
According to Global Bersih, overseas voters had to go to huge efforts and expense to return their ballots in time during previous state and parliamentary elections.
It claimed this was glaring proof that the EC was not effectively fulfilling its responsibility to ensure Malaysians overseas could exercise their right to vote and was instead putting this burden on overseas voters themselves.
In light of the approaching state elections, Global Bersih urged the EC to ensure a more effective, inclusive, and transparent overseas voting system.
It suggested the EC allow non-Malaysians to act as witnesses on postal ballot documents to enable more overseas Malaysians to participate in the voting process.
According to the movement, the current requirement for postal ballot documents to be signed and witnessed by a Malaysian citizen had proven to be a stumbling block for many overseas Malaysians who live in areas with few or no other Malaysians.
Global Bersih also suggested the EC extend the campaign period to a minimum of between 21 and 25 days to allow enough time for postal ballots to be sent to overseas voters and returned to polling stations.
It observed that campaign periods for previous elections had been far too short to allow overseas voters to receive and return ballots, and had necessitated the use of expensive courier services.
“The 11 days minimum campaign period required under Regulation 3(1) Elections (Conduct of Elections) Regulations 1981 is totally insufficient to accommodate the reality of the overseas postal voting timeline,” claimed the movement.
Global Bersih said the EC should also standardise and communicate the process of overseas ballot dispatched from the ‘Pusat Pengeluaran Undi’ (vote issuing centre) to overseas Malaysians.
It claimed there is a need for a transparent and standardised standard operating procedure (SOP) on how ballots are dispatched to overseas Malaysians, which explicitly identifies the fastest and safest method to dispatch overseas ballots, and ensures that there will be a tracking number for each ballot.
The movement recommended the EC increase the effectiveness of overseas voter education and mobilisation using all possible channels, and in particular, explicitly solicit the assistance of Malaysian Foreign Missions and agencies responsible for students to distribute accurate and updated information.
Global Bersih said according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Malaysian diaspora population stood at 1,860,037 as of 2020.
“Thanks to the implementation of Undi18 and Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), the number of overseas Malaysians entitled to vote has significantly grown and is set to increase even further.
“The implementation of other Global Bersih recommendations has also drastically increased the number of overseas voters. These include online registration for overseas postal voters, the inclusion of voters in neighbouring countries in the overseas postal voting system, and the removal of unnecessary requirements to register as overseas voters,” said Global Bersih.
The movement added that from 7,979 registered overseas postal voters for GE14, the number jumped drastically by 603 per cent to 48,109 registered overseas voters for GE15.
Global Bersih is an international non-partisan movement of overseas Malaysians focusing on electoral reform to advocate for the rights of the Malaysian diaspora.