BUTTERWORTH — The party elections of PKR in four states namely Perlis, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Melaka have been postponed to another date following problems in the voting process held in Penang and Kedah today.
Following the issues, the election in Kedah was cancelled and would be held again at another date, said PKR Party Election Committee (JPP) secretary Ismail Yusop.
He said the election process would be held on 30 Sept in Johor as scheduled by JPP after the nomination of candidate in the Port Dickson by-election. Similarly the elections in Negeri Sembilan and Melaka were also be held Sept 30 after the Port Dickson by-election nomination.
“All voting processes conducted in Kedah have been cancelled. The elections for Perak and Perlis scheduled tomorrow were also postponed. JPP will set new dates for all divisions in the states concerned,” he said in a media conference here tonight.
For the PKR election in Penang, Ismail said the voting results today were accepted without any amendments until there were written objections from dissatisfied parties.
“The reports received by JPP from field personnel were very disappointing. There were many unexpected incidents especially in Kedah and several places in Penang leaving JPP with no choice except to postpone election in nine divisions in Kedah.
“At the same time the JPP operations room also received several complaints on the voting process in Penang,” he said.
Ismail said JPP had identified several problems during the voting process in Kedah and Penang today especially in understanding the system and process of e-voting.
He said there was a lack of technical support at voting centres to assist personnel handling the voting process resulting in several untoward incidents apart from the confusion on the status of members in the list of eligible voters.
“JPP has made preparations to handle the issues but as it is the first time holding e-voting, the verification process of members could not be carried out smoothly due to the large turnout,” he said.
“The JPP wishes to emphasise that all the incidents that occurred today are not because of the e-voting system, as JPP operations room monitoring the e-voting system found that there was no problem with the system in use,” he said.
The PKR 2018 elections kicked off in Kedah and Penang today involving 105,056 members eligible to vote at 28 branches to select the central and branch leadership.
Meanwhile, in IPOH, Perak PKR chairman Dr Muhammad Nur Manuty said the state chapter hoped the manual system could be used to ensure the voting process went smoothly and was fair to all party members, especially the elderly.
“E-voting is less effective especially for older people because some of them are not technologically savvy, although the ‘chai’ system (list of candidates) has been allowed this time.
“We practise the democratic principle of one member one vote, but when the elderly are not IT savvy, their rights have been denied,” he said in a press conference here tonight.
— BERNAMA
