INFORMATION technology experts confirmed cloud storage failure due to poor internet access caused  2,000 votes to go “missing” in the recent PKR elections in Malacca and Negri Sembilan.

Central election committee (JPP) chairman Rashid Din said this, while rapping those who had implied that the committee was hiding and manipulating the elections data.

He said five IT experts from the Institute of Darul Ehsan and abroad had independently established that the votes were unregistered due to the glitch in the e-voting system.

“Weak internet access was acknowledged (to be the cause) by the experts and it caused voting data to be come unreadable and which cannot be sent to cloud storage. That was why the online votes were ‘lost’. We will table the findings in a meeting to see what action we can take.

“To be fair (to voters), the first suggestion we can offer is a re-election before the PKR congress on November 16. Whether (re-polls will be) in full or in part, we will decide after the meeting soon, “he told reporters yesterday.

To prevent a repeat of the problem, Rashid said ballot data would be duplicated and stored in cloud and in the computer.

He said it would facilitate the technical team of the JPP to monitor the voting process graph, and in the event of a problem, it would be easily detected and fixed.

Rashid said despite the technical problems, JPP remained confident that the e-voting system was the best and safest option.

“There were some attempts to hack into the e-voting system during the elections in Malacca, but from every aspect, the system is believed to be safe as we also employ hackers to prevent other hacker activities.

“We will discuss and review all aspects including internet access, hackers and staff who try to sabotage the votes. We will continue to improve the system in the future, “he said.

News reports said six PKR divisions in Malacca were missing 1,700 votes and a division in Negri Sembilan missing 300 votes.– Bernama, October 26, 2018.