ELECTORAL watchdog Bersih 2.0 has questioned the move by the Election Commission (EC) to include more civil servants to be eligible for postal voting as an attempt to shore up votes for the government.

Bersih 2.0 chairman Maria Chin Abdullah said the EC’s move will only add to critics’ suspicions that the EC is trying to tilt elections in favour of the Barisan Nasional coalition.

“I think it is very obvious… the EC rules are like a shifting goalpost, and now they are introducing their new category of postal voters.

“Why not introduce it in the previous general election?” she said at a press conference at the Bersih 2.0 headquarters in Petaling Jaya today.

The EC has gazetted civil servants who are in the Prisons Department, Fire and Rescue Department, Maritime Enforcement Agency, government health workers, Police Volunteer Reserve Corp, Civil Defence Department, Immigration Department, National Disaster Management Agency and National Registration Department as eligible to register as postal voters in October and December last year.

Previously, only the army, the police force and their spouses, members of the media and Malaysians living overseas are registered as postal voters.

“We are also concerned about possible electoral manipulation using postal votes to swing election outcomes in favour of BN.

“At present, there is no public confidence in the EC carrying out the elections,” Maria said.

Bersih has demanded that the EC abolish domestic postal voting and focus on advanced voting instead.

Voters have the option to apply for postal voting and advanced voting.

“Without the processes to ensure voters’ secrecy, right to choose, as well as documented and actual access to election observers, the EC should not implement postal voting (for civil servants).

“We have already submitted a memorandum to the EC before to say that advanced voting should be a day before polling day – vote on the same day and count on the same day.”

Bersih is giving the EC one week to answer its demands, she said, adding that police and army officers should not be allowed to vote in their barracks.

“Police officers and army officers should not be voting in their barracks and their spouses should not be postal voters, too.

Political parties have no access in the barracks to monitor voting, she said. – January 10, 2018.