KUALA LUMPUR: An initial analysis of the electoral roll by an academic research group has found that at least 3.4 million names, or about 27% of the voter list, need to be further investigated.

The ongoing Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project (Merap) uncovered 3.3 million cases of doubtful voters, in addition to approximately 100,000 reported cases over the past two weeks, said political analyst Dr Ong Kian Ming, who heads the project at the UCSI University.

The 3.3 million voters include: (i) 3.1 million voters whose IC addresses show a different constituency from the one where the voter is actually voting; (ii) 65,455 “foreigners” on the electoral roll; and (iii) 106,743 deletions and 6,762 additions without public display of the electoral from from 4Q10 to 3Q11.

“The presence of the 3.1 million voters whose IC addresses do not correspond with their voting constituencies is particularly troubling because this information was given to SPR [the Election Commission (EC)] by the National Registration Department [NRD] in 2002, before the implementation of the new registration system where all voters have to be registered according to the constituency indicated by their IC addresses,” Ong told a press conference to highlight the findings yesterday.

It appears the EC has failed to act on this information that was given by the NRD to clean up the electoral roll, even though the presence of these non-resident voters contravenes Article 119 1(b) of the Federal Constitution, said Ong. The article says a voter must be a resident in the constituency in which he or she is voting.

He was rebutting a point made by EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof, who was reported to have said in a recent interview with Sin Chew Daily that Malaysia’s electoral roll is the “cleanest in the world”.

In addition, said Ong, it is troubling that even though the EC kept detailed records that reveal the presence of more than 65,000 foreigners on the voter list, it does not seem to be concerned with the presence of these people, who were listed as “Bruneian, Cocos, Filipino, Indonesian, Pakistani” and so on.

“The preliminary findings of Merap show that there are grave concerns about potential irregularities in the electoral roll and that Malaysia is very far from having the cleanest electoral roll in the world,” Ong said.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, April 24, 2012.