A local man who travelled all the way to Penang from Kuala Lumpur today to vote in the state elections was astonished and saddened to learn he had already done so.
The 46-year-old man was informed that someone had previously voted in his name when he showed up at Sekolah Kebangsaan Jelutong to cast his ballot in the Batu Lanchang seat at around 11.30am, according to Free Malaysia Today (FMT).
According to the Pakatan Harapan candidate, Ong Ah Teong, Election Commission (EC) officers discovered that the man’s name had been used from the voter registration system, which indicated that someone may have stolen his identity and voted with an illegal MyKad.
“I have persuaded the man to file a police report, as he confessed his feelings of anger and disappointment,“ the DAP participant was reported as saying.
When a 31-year-old woman went to vote at the same polling place at around 2pm, Ong claimed he was later told she had the same fate.
After learning she had already cast her ballot when she arrived at the polling place, a woman from Kedah also lodged a police report.
Rozana Mokhtar, 35, asserted that she intended to cast her first ballot at Padang Serai’s SK Taman Mahsuri.
“The poll worker at the polling place was astonished to inform me that my name had been erased (from the voter registration system) after checking my IC. She was cited as claiming, “Someone had voted in my name using a false IC.”
Identity theft is now obviously a persistent problem, particularly as our general state elections come to an end.
Let’s hope that this matter is fixed as quickly as possible and that Malaysians everywhere do not have any difficulties with voting ever again.
