EC deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said the removal of dead voters’ names from the electoral roll was a continuous process that should be trusted by the people.
“The electoral roll is clean…there is no way for anybody to go and vote twice.
“In Kuala Besut, for example, even before the seat fell unexpectedly vacant, we have already removed the names of dead voters’ from the electoral roll,” he told a press conference after monitoring the early voting process for the Kuala Besut state by-election at the Gong Kedak air force base here Saturday.
The early voting at the base involved 1,134 Royal Malaysian Air Force personnel and their spouses, as well as 14 policemen.
The by-election has been necessitated by the death of assemblyman Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar of the Barisan Nasional (BN) of lung cancer on June 26.
It sees a straight fight between BN candidate Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abd Rahman, 37, a civil engineer with the Drainage and Irrigation Department who hails from Kuala Besut, and PAS candidate Endot @ Azlan Yusof, 48, a contractor.
On the use of indelible ink, Wan Ahmad said each voting channel was given a bottle of the indelible purple-coloured ink.
He said voters and party supporters should believe that the ink was not easily washable and there would not be a situation where a voter could cast his or her vote twice.
While showing his index finger which was marked with the indelible ink, Wan Ahmad said: “I dipped my finger in the indelible ink six days ago and used only water to wash it, but the ink colour still shows….trust me.”
When asked whether indelible ink would continue to be used in future elections in the country, he said the EC would study the possibility in detail before making suggestions to use other methods.
“We will discuss it with the stakeholders…if they want to continue using the black ink like in Africa, we will continue with that,” he said.
On Pandan member of Parliament Rafizi Ramli’s allegation that top EC leaders, including its chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof, had connection with the indelible ink supplier, Wan Ahmad said the allegation was not true and was merely a baseless accusation.
“Rafizi did that on purpose and he used his parliamentary immunity to make the allegation and spread lies,” he said.
– BERNAMA
