THE total number of registered voters in Malaysia has now reached 20.6 million following the inclusion of Undi18 voters and automatic voter registration.

In data provided by DAP’s assistant political education director Ong Kian Ming, the Election Commission (EC) has added 5.61 million new voters, taking the total number of new voters to 20.6 million.

By comparison, in the 2018 general election there were only 14.9 million registered voters.

The addition comes after Kuching High Court ordered the government to implement Undi18 legislation by December 31, 2021, after agreeing with a legal challenge filed by five Sarawak youths to an attempt by the previous government – led by Muhyiddin Yassin – to shelve its implementation.

The Constitution (Amendment) Act 2019 – informally known as Undi18 – lowers the minimum age of voters and electoral candidates from 21 to 18. The act also included automatic voter registration.

There are now an extra 1.06 million voters in Selangor, followed by Johor (748,955), Sarawak (665,543), Perak (495,190) and Sabah (481,477).

Meanwhile, numbers in Perlis, Putrajaya and Labuan increased by 41,746, 19,670 and 17,044 voters respectively.

Ong, the MP for Bangi, said the bulk of the new voting public is over 21.

“Only 21% or 1.2 million of the additional 5.6 million are 18 to 21 years old. The largest proportion are previously unregistered voters above the age of 21,” he said, adding that it will be interesting to see how these previously unregistered voters will affect the next general election.

Urban seats get highest number of new voters

The additional 5.6 million new voters affect the urban constituencies in Selangor and Johor particularly.

Of the 10 constituencies that will be most affected by new voters, six are in Selangor, three in Johor and one in Sarawak.

The Selangor seats are Bangi, Kota Raja, Subang, Damansara, Klang and Gombak; while the Johor seats are Tebrau, Iskandar Puteri and Pasir Gudang; and Miri will see numbers swell in Sarawak.

Notably, eight of these constituencies voted for Pakatan Harapan at the last poll. The only exceptions are Steven Choong in Tebrau and Mohamed Azmin Ali in Gombak. Both MPs campaigned on a PH ticket before defecting to Perikatan Nasional.

Bangi will see 100,630 new voters eligible for the next poll, followed by Tebrau (87,684), Kota Raja (77,750), Iskandar Puteri (76,410) and Subang (72,630).

There are now more than 279,000 voters in Bangi, more than double that of the 2013 general election when only 133,139 constituents were able to vote.

Meanwhile, Tebrau now has more than 210,000 voters on the electoral roll, joining other urban areas with more than 200,000 voters like Kota Raja, Iskandar Puteri, Subang, Damansara, and Klang. – January 8, 2022.