THE Election Commission must improve and tighten the conditions for postal voting, or abolish the system in the name of electoral integrity, said the National Patriots Association (Patriot).

Patriot president brig-gen (rtd) Mohd Arshad Raji, in a statement today, said the group supported the call by Bersih 2.0 for the EC to either fine-tune the postal voting system or do away with it entirely, as current conditions left the system open to abuse.

EC chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah had announced that 12 categories of civil servants could apply as postal voters beginning Monday, on the condition that their employers verified that they would be on duty on polling day.

Bersih said the condition lacked clear guidelines, such as what form of proof was acceptable, the verification of employers’ identities and which parties qualified as employers.

Arshad said postal voting should be limited to those who were away on national duty and unable to return to base within a day, such as naval patrol and maritime forces.

“Even for the military and police, which form the largest groups eligible for postal voting, there is no need for postal voting at all.

“Unlike in our time, when we were fighting our nation’s enemies, when the bulk of the troops were either in the jungle or on standby for emergency deployment, we are now in peacetime, and troops are stationed at their respective bases.”

He said the categories of eligible postal voters should not have been expanded, adding that a proper roster for civil servants on duty was all it took to allow them time off on election day to cast their votes.

Among groups eligible for postal voting are election staff, police and army personnel, members of the media, members of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, Prisons Department and Fire and Rescue Department, staff of government hospitals and clinics, police volunteers, and Civil Defence Force, Immigration Department and National Disaster Management Agency personnel, as well as National Registration Department staff stationed at urban transformation centres. – February 22, 2018.