544 polling centres to open on Tuesday for early voting

A total of 544 polling centres involving 882 polling streams will open at 8am on Tuesday for early voting by armed forces personnel, general operations force, their spouses and policemen, the Election Commission (EC) said today.

EC secretary Datuk Kamaruddin Mohamed Baria said the centres are mostly at the state police contingent headquarters and district police headquarters for policemen and military camps for armed forces personnel.

Polling centres with less than 50 voters, the centres would remain open until 2pm, and until 7pm for centres having more than 50 voters, he said.

"The indelible ink will be marked on the left index finger of the early voters. The ink will be of different colour than the ink to be used on May 5 nationwide polling day. The ink will remain on the index finger for a week.

The commission has allocated 10,000 bottles of indelible ink for early voting," he told reporters at the commission's headquarters, here.

Of the 272,387 early voters, 161,251 of them are armed forces personnel and their spouses, while the rest 111,136 are policemen and members of the general operations force and their spouses, he said.