Electoral roll not defective without address of 136,272 voters: SFC

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court here today was told that the electoral roll was not rendered defective even if it did not have the addresses of the 136,272 voters in Selangor.
Senior Federal Counsel Datuk Amarjeet Singh said the addresses went missing when the Election Commission (EC) carried out a migration exercise of information of registered voters from the manual system to a computerised system in 2002.
The exercise was confirmed by the EC at that time, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman.
In his submission, Amarjeet said the voters were not split into the stated localities by the EC, resulting in the voters to complain that they were in the wrong parliamentary constituency.
"The error was due to the wrong parliamentary constituency code is given to them. The voters were placed back in their rightful localities after carrying out a check of their addresses with the National Registration Department.
"It was not a situation that arose from alteration of the polling district boundaries," he said.
Amarjeet said this in the hearing of a judicial review application by the Selangor government to challenge the proposed redelineation of electoral boundaries for the parliamentary and state constituencies in Selangor by the EC.
Amarjeet, representing the EC, its chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah and secretary Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh, who were named the respondents in the application, said that the applicant's ground was based on presumptions, not hard evidence.
"There is no evidence to show that the EC arbitrarily assigned voters without addresses to localities. The ground raised by the applicant is without merit," he said.
He also said that the proposed recommendations were not amenable to judicial review and the proper forum for the matters raised by the applicant was at the local enquiry.
On Oct 19, last year, Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali, on behalf of the state government, filed a judicial review application to challenge the proposed redelineation of electoral boundaries for parliamentary and state constituencies in Selangor by the EC.
He is seeking a declaration that the proposed redelineation, from a 2016 study by EC was unconstitutional, inconsistent with Clauses 2(c) and 2(d) of Article 113(2) of the Thirteen Schedule of the Federal Constitution, and null and void.
He is also seeking a declaration that EC's failure to use the latest electoral roll in the redelineation was unconstitutional, not in accordance with Clause 3 of the Thirteen Schedule of the Federal Constitution, and thus null and void.
Mohamed Azmin also wanted the EC to correct and update the addresses of the 36,272 voters in Selangor, whose addresses were missing in the electoral roll.
Azmin filed the application on grounds that the EC had acted unconstitutionally, unreasonably and irrationally against Article 113(2) of the Federal Constitution.
He claimed that the EC had erred and acted contrary to the law and constitution and irrationally failing to use the current electoral roll as required under Clause 3 of the Thirteen Schedule of the Federal Constitution.

Azmin is also seeking, among other reliefs, a declaration that the published notice lacked details, where normal voters, local authorities or state governments cannot exercise their right to make a representation.
The hearing before judge Azizul Azmi Adnan continues on Oct 24. — Bernama