PKR’S election committee has drawn up a fall-back plan should voting not proceed smoothly in Sabah and Sarawak, especially following concerns that the e-voting system will encounter problems due to unreliable internet services in the states.

Apart from deploying more polling officers to centres, they are also prepared to conduct voting offline, with voters’ information already prepared, said the committee’s deputy chairman, Adzman Hedra.

“For Sabah and Sarawak, in terms of preparation, we have to look at what happened in Malacca, Kedah and Kuala Selangor. All three incidents taught us many things and we are ready to face them if they occur in Sabah and Sarawak.

“Some of the steps we are taking, apart from having an internal storage, is being ready to vote offline. But even offline, we can’t do it fully. We still need to begin online, but if there is a problem with the connection, we will go offline.

“Once there is a connection, we will sync the votes and the results will be transferred to the server.

“We suggested all this to make it fair and in case many of the branches there really have no line,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Polling at various locations for the party elections had been delayed due to the instability of the e-voting system as well as erratic internet connection.

In Malacca, some 2,000 votes were lost due to technical issues.

Most recently, polling in Kuala Selangor was forced to be delayed after a telecommunications signal blocker was detected at a polling centre.

Sabah has the second highest number of PKR voters at 145,639, whereas Sarawak has 56,901 voters.

Sabah’s election will run over the weekend, while voting in Sarawak will be conducted on November 10. – November 3, 2018.