THE Election Commission (EC) hopes to roll out automatic voter registration (AVR) in the next 18 months, said chairman Azhar Azizan Harun today.

“We haven’t put a deadline on this but our ‘guesstimate’ is around one-and-a-half years,” he said during a forum in Putrajaya today.

Azhar said the EC has to consult all stakeholders such as political parties and other government agencies before implementing AVR.

He was responding to moderator Sayed Munawar Sayed Mohd Mustar’s question on when the election body planned to roll out AVR.

According to Azhar, there are currently four million eligible but unregistered voters above 21 years old.

“With the lowering of the voting age to 18, there will be an additional 1.5 million voters with another 500,000 more every year,” he said during the “Make a Change, Let’s Do It Together” campaign.

The campaign is organised by the EC as it launched its online voter registration system MySPR Daftar.

He was also speaking in the first forum “Undi18: Trends and Responsibilities” with Paya Besar MP Mohd Shahar Abdullah and Ketari assemblyman Young Syefura Othman.

Meanwhile, Azhar said he did not favour mandatory voting as the right to vote came with the right not to vote.

“There’s mandatory voting in Australia but the turnout is only 92%. What we need to do, however, is to ensure there is adequate facilities for people to vote.

“In Australia, a Perth voter can vote for his candidate in Canberra but a Sabahan or Sarawakian voter cannot do that now. He or she has to go back to vote and it’s costly.

“As such, we have to look into how to change this.” – July 18, 2019.