YOUTH movement Undi18 is organising a project to bring back 50,000 overseas ballots to ensure more Malaysians get a chance to vote in the general election (GE), its co-founder Tharma Pillai said.

He said they will be working with 13 youth and student organisations in 10 countries to achieve this goal.

The participating countries are Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, Morocco, Japan, Germany, Egypt, Singapore and Qatar.

Undi18 had successfully advocated for the amendment of the Federal Constitution to reduce the minimum voting age in Malaysia from 21 to 18 years old. The group started off as a student movement in 2016, under the umbrella of the Malaysian Students’ Global Alliance.

Tharma urged postal voters to register for their ballots for the project to succeed.

“We are hoping if 100,000 Malaysians register, then we can go for half the number (postal votes).

“This is an important election to determine our country’s future. I hope we all can play a part to determine where our country is headed,” he said.

He said that currently there are one million registered overseas voters who are either working or studying abroad.

On Monday, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of parliament, paving the way for the GE.

The Election Commission has opened applications for domestic and foreign postal votes for the GE.

The election has to be held 60 days after Parliament is dissolved. The Election Commission will set the dates on October 20.

Tharma said that in the 10 countries there will be a single collection point (for ballots) either at the student or youth associations.

“We have 10 countries now, we might be expanding to China since there was a request from there too,” he said.

“Once we get the ballots we will then buy flight tickets to bring the ballots back to Kuala Lumpur where it will be distributed to the respective areas nationwide.”

To carry out the project, Tharma said they will require RM500,000 in funding.

“We will be doing crowd funding to get the RM500,000 which will translate to RM10 per ballot.”

Tharma said what Undi18 is advocating for is that Malaysians overseas have the right to choose their government.

“What we are doing is assisting them in getting their ballots home in time for polling.”

“We also want to create awareness on voter registration and the postal vote process.”

He said they are trying to solve the massive logistics problem that occurred in the past such as the delay of postal votes reaching their destination.

“Our concern now is that with automatic voter registration, thousands of Malaysian students overseas are also going to be involved in the election process.”

“The EC has not indicated that they are improving on (organising for) postal votes.”

He added that if the campaigning period is shorter this time around there could be delays in postal votes such as when they register and get their ballots, but won’t be able to send it back in time.

To contribute, visit http://bit.ly/VoteMalaysia. – October 16, 2022.