Voter registration
Sep 10th, 2007 by Tian
9 Sept was another busy Sunday.
KeADILan Batu Division organized a voter registration exercise from 09:00-13:00hr. We opened a counter in a coffee shop in Taman Mastiara. We chose here because there are quite a few new neighbourhoods that have emerged in the last ten years, eg. Taman Mastiara, Taman Tasik Indah, Taman Mutiara, etc.
Most residents here moved from other places. And many have not transferred their voting addresses to the current residence.
On our request, the Election Commission (SPR) sent two young workers to help out with the voters registration. Currently, SPR allows agents of political parties to register new voters, but only SPR officers can process application for transfer from a constituency to another.
The registration exercise received enthusiastic response from the residents. In fact, many people are rather ignorant of our electoral process or election system. People asked simple questions like: “Do I need to register as a voter prior to every election?”, “Do I still have a right to voters if I had never voted earlier?”, etc.
Perhaps this also reflects the state of our democracy. We discover that still a large number of people do not know and where to register as voters. Year in year out, they forsake their right to participate in the nation’s decision making process.