THE Election Commission (EC) online voter registration portal, MySPR Daftar, is receiving good response from the youths especially those in their 20s.
Penang EC director Raveendran Nair said the youths preferred to register via the portal because it is convenient.
“However, our main source of voter registration is from the post offices,” he said when he paid a courtesy call on Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow today.
Raveendran said Penang now has about 955,000 voters.
“We expect the number of voters to increase when the lowering of voting age to 18, and the automatic registration are implemented,” he said.
The Parliament has unanimously passed the constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18 and to make 18 the minimum age for a Malaysian citizen to run for public office on July 16, 2019. Later, the EC announced that the implementation was delayed and said that the lowering of the minimum voting age and automatic voter registration (AVR) could only be done by Sept 1, 2022.
Chow said the number of voters had increased nearly double in a span of 30 years.
“The number of voters was around 500,000 to 600,000 when I first contested in 1990,” Chow said.
Raveendran said the EC is addressing various challenges, among them is the limited voting stations.
“The challenge is even greater for constituencies with a large population but limited voting stations.
“In the near future, we may see more public places, beyond the schools, being used as voting stations. We definitely need more facilities and infrastructure for the effort,” he said.
Chow suggested to the EC to consider looking at the operations of the mega Covid-19 vaccination centre (PPV).
Both Chow and Raveendran also discussed the amendment of the State Constitution to increase state seats within the framework of the Parliament number, the amendment of State Constitution to make 18 the minimum age for a Malaysian citizen to run for public office and the challenges faced by the EC.
After serving for almost three years as the Penang EC director, Raveendran will be serving as the director general of Malaysian Indian Transformation Unit (Mitra) in Putrajaya from July 12 onwards. It is learnt that the new Penang EC director has been identified.
Raveendran thanked the Penang government for the support and cooperation. Chow wished him success in his future career.
Story by Christopher Tan
Pix by Adleena Rahayu Ahmad Radzi