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13 May 2016
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Bersih: Vote buying, other offences, rampant in S’wak polls
Election watchdog laments that repeat offences are going unpunished, as it releases preliminary report on the May 7 Sarawak State Election.
PETALING JAYA : Election watchdog Bersih 2.0 announced today that both the BN and the Opposition committed election offences in the recent Sarawak State Election.
Its chairman Maria Chin Abdullah and several committee members revealed that these were mainly repeat offences, such as bribery, intimidation and usage of government machinery. She lamented the inaction on the part of the Election Commission for years over such offences.
“What is worrying is that these (offences) are not new. It’s done in every election. Today, we are having election offences being repeated on a much larger scale. Yet the EC does not open its mouth or take action to stop these offences,” she told a press conference at the NGO’s headquarters.
Among the highlights of the Bersih report are cases of voting slips containing the BN logo found in various constituencies, including Telang Usan, Asajaya, Stakan, Kalaka, Tasik Biru and Batu Kitang. These slips, Bersih claims, were later exchanged for money.
Cash handouts were also observed during the campaign period. For instance, voters confirmed to Bersih observers that they had received RM30 each from BN party workers during house visits in Tasik Biru.
In its preliminary report, Bersih also pointed out offences regarding the provision of food and drinks by both sides, which contravene Section 8 of the Election Offences Act.
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Bersih unveils seven election offences in S’wak, slams ‘incompetent’ EC
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Election watchdog Bersih has unveiled seven major categories of election offences breached by both sides in the recently-concluded Sarawak polls.
The offences, observed by its Pemantau team, include bribery; unauthorised expenses during campaign period; intimidation; free food, drinks and prizes; organising campaign booths on polling day; ferrying of voters to the polling station and use of government machinery.
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4 May 2016
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malaysiakini.com @malaysiakini
Sudden leap in S’wak voter turnout – Bersih wants EC to explain
“There is a big discrepancy here – it was not (just) a five to six percent jump,” she pointed out.
In Malaysiakini’s live coverage of polling day yesterday…..the EC, which had consistently announced the turnout rate throughout the day, was uncharacteristically silent about the tally after 4pm.
Past midnight, the EC announced that the overall voter turnout was 70.01 percent.
According to a report in the The Star, EC chief Mohd Hashim Abdullah said the overall voter turnout had included early and absentee voters who cast their ballots on May 3.
Hashim, however, had reportedly declined to reveal the exact turnout for yesterday’s polling day.
Based on the EC’s announcement, the 11th Sarawak state election saw 70.01 percent of the 1,109,795 eligible voters exercising their democratic rights.
The election saw BN winning by a landslide, taking 72 seats in the 82-seat state assembly while DAP captured seven seats and PKR, three.
Malaysiakini has contacted the Election Commission for comment.
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9 May 2016
Bizarre leap in S’wak voter turnout defies logic
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The near surreal upsurge of voter turnout at the last moment, I would like to stress, is a very grave discrepancy
The number of votes cast at 2pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm are 44%, 50%, 52% and 70% respectively.
It shows that the pace of voters’ arrival had been reducing gradually in the afternoon to a slow pace of 2% per hour until 4pm, when it suddenly surged nine times to reach 18% per hour.
Can this most fantastic spectacle be verified by eyewitnesses? Could our polling stations handle 200,000 voters in one hour?
Why didn’t the EC announce the last turnout rate promptly at 5pm as it had done earlier at hourly intervals? Why did the EC have to delay the last announcement until midnight?
Such bizarre happenings give rise to strong public suspicion of massive padding up of ballot boxes before counting began.
Hence, the police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) must move in immediately to seize all computers and ballot boxes from the EC for a thorough investigation to ascertain the true cause of such massive discrepancy.
https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/340794
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weehingthong 