We will explain Penang redelineation exercise in court - EC Chairman

The Election Commission (EC) will only make an explanation in court if the Penang state government decides to file a lawsuit against the agency's redelineation exercise in the state, said its chairman, Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah.

He said the commission was not going to prevent the move as this was the best way to solve the matter.

"We cannot stop them and this is not the first time. We will explain in court and leave it to the court to decide," he told a press conference after launching the #Jom Kita Daftar Undi - Singgah Mesra SPR programme in Kampung Ruat here, today.

He said this when asked to comment on the Penang government's move to sue the EC after they allegedly discovered disturbing information in its delimitation exercise in the state.

Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, however reportedly refused to disclose the information.

In another development, Mohd Hashim said the voter registration data for fourth quarter of 2016 showed that a total of 14,305,849 citizens have registered as voters.

"Based on National Registration Department data, as at Jan 4 this year there are 18.16 million citizens who are aged 21 and above," he said.

"This means the number of citizens who have not registered as voters has decreased to 3,858,471 people compared to 4.1 million as at the third quarter of last year," he said.

He added that it was difficult to shift from the 4.1 million but through efforts undertaken by the EC and the support of all parties, the agency managed to increase awareness to get the people to register as voters.

"The EC is confident that this number will continue to drop in the first quarter of 2017 and the results are currently being processed," he added.

He said there was drastic improvement in both urban and rural areas as the activities to promote voter registration were conducted simultaneously across the country.

"However, there are some concerns in terms of the attitude of those who refuse to register as voters and registered voters reluctance to go to vote, apart from the excuse of having to travel to the polling stations.

"The EC's role is to find the best way to facilitate voting. In other countries they have initiated big changes by bringing the ballot boxes to the villages but if we do that here, this will give rise to all sorts of acccusations," he said. - BERNAMA