A TOTAL of 357,592 potential voters have verified their information with the Election Commission as of October 31, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Parliament) Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar (Santubong MP-PN) told Parliament today.

“This was through the registration of automatic voters programme,” he said in a written reply to Parliament yesterday.

This stage of the automatic voter registration programme is being carried out until December 31 to allow 5.8 million people age 18 and above the chance to verify their information with EC and ensure their details are correct before being registered to vote in future elections.

“The EC hopes that the verification will be completed by December 31 before it automatically registers all the unregistered but qualified voters,” said Wan Junaidi.

He said that EC is committed to ensure all qualified voters over the age of 18 will be automatically registered based on a Kuching High Court decision, in response to a question from Wong Shu Qi (Kluang-PH).

On September 3, Kuching High Court ordered the government to implement Undi 18 by the end of the year to enable youths to vote at the next general election.

High Court judicial commissioner Alexander Siew How Wai said the EC had acted “illegally” and “irrationally” when it decided to delay the implementation on Undi 18 from July 2021 to September 2022.

The judge rejected arguments from the EC that it had to delay Undi18 due to the pandemic and the movement-control orders enforced by the government to curb the spread of Covid-19. – November 17, 2021.