PUTRAJAYA: Claims of indelible ink coming off during advance voting last Tuesday were isolated incidents and do not impact the effectiveness of the ink, said Election Commission secretary Datuk Kamaruddin Baria.
He acknowledged that some officers could have been nervous and failed to follow instructions on how to prepare and apply the ink, but maintained that the ink will not wash off completely under normal circumstances.
“This is the first time that we are using indelible ink, so maybe the officers were nervous … but even if most of it washes off, there will still be traces of it and our officers will be provided with magnifying glasses to check for the ink,” he told a press conference here yesterday.
Several police reports were lodged after claims surfaced on social media of indelible ink washing off just hours after it was applied on the index fingers of security personnel and their spouses who cast their ballots during advance voting on Tuesday.
Kamaruddin assured that the EC will make certain that every officer tasked with marking the fingers of voters knows the proper procedures for applying the ink come polling day this Sunday.
Kamaruddin showing the indelible ink that will be used to stain the index finger of voters.He said that all officers are required to follow four steps when applying indelible ink:
> shake the bottle for 30 seconds before opening the cover;
> shake the bottle every two hours to make sure the contents are mixed properly;
> make sure the voter’s finger is clean and dry; and
> mark the entire first segment of the finger, including the nail and under the finger.
Kamaruddin questioned the reasoning behind some claims posted on social media sites of indelible ink coming off with the use of substances such as thinner, hand sanitiser and bleach.
“Maybe there are some bad intentions behind these extreme measures. If you pour acid over your finger, the ink will definitely come off but you will lose your finger,” he said.
Kamaruddin also denied claims that the EC had reduced the number of polling streams in some areas despite the increase in the number of voters.
He said that each polling centre can only handle a maximum of 3,800 voters, and the EC will open another polling centre to deal with the increase in the number of voters.
“In some places we even increased the number of polling streams. In cases where a polling centre has reached its maximum number of voters, we cannot add any more streams, so we will open a new polling centre,” he added.
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