THE number of postal votes for the Pulai parliamentary and Simpang Jeram state by-elections collected from Malaysians in Singapore has been described as unsatisfactory.

VoteMalaysia volunteer Farrah Diyana Mohamad Ali, 35, said only two ballot papers have been collected, but she hoped that the number would increase before the deadline tomorrow night.

1thirdmedia Movement, one of the groups teaming up with Undi18, a Malaysian youth movement, is assisting in collecting postal votes from Malaysian voters working and residing in the republic.

The team had done the same for the Johor elections, the November general election and the recent six state elections.

Farrah said they adopted the same strategy of setting up five collection zones to cover the central, eastern, western, northern and southern areas of the republic.

She said the voters just needed to contact the volunteers to hand over the ballots.

“We started collecting on September 1. This will end tomorrow night. We are not sure how many Malaysian citizens will cast their ballots, but based on the survey that we’ve conducted, the number is small,” she said.

Farrah said the volunteers would be using their vehicles to deliver the ballot papers to Dewan Jubli Intan in Johor Baru.

The Election Commission said in a statement that 304 postal ballots were issued for the by-elections – 226 for the Pulai by-election and 78 for the Simpang Jeram by-election.

The by-elections are held following the death of Salahuddin Ayub on July 23. Polling is on Saturday. – Bernama, September 7, 2023.