FROM declaring a mid-week polling day to the late arrival of postal ballots, Malaysians have banded together to fight back against what many see as efforts by the Election Commission to prevent voters from casting their ballots tomorrow.

Hours after EC chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah announced that polling day will fall on May 9 (Wednesday), a number of Malaysians began offering financial and logistical assistance to fellow countrymen to help each other to return home to vote.

The #undirabu movement saw Malaysians from all walks of life connecting via websites like PulangMengundi.com and balik.undirabu.com as well as social media for pick-up points for carpooling groups, and offers of financial assistance for those needing to pay for travel home.

More than RM180,000 has been raised to date for the undirabu.com project, which provides carpool matching services, bus chartering as well as air ticket subsidies to travel between the peninsula and Sabah and Sarawak.

Several groups under the #undirabu initiative have also raised enough funds to charter 16 buses that will leave from Kuala Lumpur, Johor Baru and Puchong in Selangor to transport outstation voters to various states.

Overseas Malaysians have also recently raised alarm over the fact that as of yesterday, many have yet to receive their ballot papers, making it almost impossible for their votes to reach Malaysia by the Wednesday 5pm deadline set by the EC.

But instead of backing down, postal voters have found alternative ways to send their ballot papers in time, namely by canvassing for volunteers willing to fly back to hand in the ballots to respective constituencies.

Pam, the Auckland coordinator for electoral reform group Bersih 2.0, said many people had expected that getting their ballots back in time would be a challenge, but most were shocked that as late as three days before polling day, many had not even received their ballot papers yet.

“We did not expect the entire logistics of delivering the postal vote to us, and sending it back, would be in this much of a shambles.

She said that once people realised they would not be able to get their votes back in time, even with courier services, Malaysians started getting together to buy tickets to fly volunteers home.

She added that Global Bersih had previously and consistently campaigned for a longer period of 28 days to enable postal votes to be received and returned in time.

“Any reasonable person can see that this system is designed to fail. It is impossible to get the votes out and returned within such a short period.

The EC earlier said it had received 7,979 overseas postal vote applications and 3,653 applications for “overseas absent voters” comprising civil servants and full-time students, as well as their partners.

James, a Malaysian living in Perth for 13 years, was present at a Malaysian eatery in the city to hand in his vote to a group of volunteers flying the votes back home today.

He said he has had to mobilise friends and family back home to meet the volunteer in Kuala Lumpur to collect his ballot paper, before driving back to Ipoh to deliver it to the receiving officer of his constituency.

James only received his ballot papers on Monday, and would not be able to send his vote back on time even if he used a courier service.

“I did consider just giving up on getting my vote back, because of this logistical nightmare,” he said.

“But then the thought of letting the EC deny me of my rights, just made me even more determined to challenge them.” – May 8, 2018.