THE independent UndiRabu movement, a group of ordinary Malaysians, will restart its initiative to help voters return to their hometowns to cast their ballot in the elections to be held in six states.

Its co-founder Alzari Joey Mahsar said the group is ready to assist registered voters to travel back and exercise their voting rights in the polls expected to be held in August.

The polls will be held in Penang, Negri Sembilan, Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan and Selangor. These states are expected to dissolve their assemblies this month.

“The team is always available when there is a need and now we are looking forward to the six state elections.

“There is a need to woo back voters who are out of their voting states to return and vote. We will once again have this initiative to encourage voters to return and vote,” Alzari told The Malaysian Insight.

UndiRabu banded together during the 14th general election (GE14) in 2018 to help voters return home as polling day fell on a Wednesday.

Alzari said the group will be looking to subsidise travel expenditure for registered electorates as it did in the past two general elections.

“We are looking at giving RM100 per person to return and vote. We want to ease their expenses.

“We are not paying the full sum because it is also the voters’ responsibility to come up with some funds. It is their responsibility to vote.

“There are Malaysians who want to fulfil their voting rights. Many of them are still recovering financially from the Covid-19 pandemic. So this might help a little,” he said.

Alzari said the group will start raising funds soon.

“We will open the normal procedure as we did previously, whereby those who wish to go back can fill up the Google Docs form which will be made available.

“We will get more details there, like where they are from and where they are going to, voting constituencies, and more.

“Then we will start looking for funders. I will ask the general public for donations. There is no fixed amount for the donation. People can donate whatever amount they want. It could be as little as RM1 and could be as high as how much the people want to give,” the UndiRabu co-founder said.

Although the suggested sum would not help to cover the entire cost, Alzari said the RM100 per person would ease some burden.

“This time, it is just inbound travelling and I think RM100 would be good because we are looking to send those in the central areas to Negri Sembilan, Penang, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu.

“Nowadays, most people have cars and they can even carpool. So, if there are four of them in a car, that will be RM400. They will even have extra to spend on food.

“Besides this, there are bus and train services, which are convenient. Those travelling to Penang and Kedah could take the train while those in the east coast areas usually travel by car,” he said.

Political parties must play their role

Being a non-partisan movement, Alzari said UndiRabu has no specific preferences in extending their help.

He, however, said political parties have a responsibility to encourage voters to return home and cast their ballot.

“Voting is every citizen’s responsibility. Your vote is a deciding factor for who you want to lead your state and who your leaders will be.

“The motivation to go back and vote must be initiated by the concerned political parties. They should be urging voters to go back and vote, and we will be riding on that,” Alzari said.

Although voter turnout for the state polls is a concern, Alzari believes it will be satisfactory.

“Some of the voters are already back in their respective voting states because of what happened during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“People from Kelantan, Terengganu who lost their jobs or couldn’t get jobs have returned to their hometowns.

“Also, people who do online businesses don’t have to be stationed in the Klang Valley anymore. They can operate from just about anywhere,” he said.

Students able to handle on their own

Alzari said during GE14, UndiRabu helped many university students return to their hometowns to vote.

He said in GE15, however, the students took care of their own travel expenses.

“During GE15, many student councils and student leaders approached me to find out how to organise something similar to UndiRabu,” he said.

“Most of our efforts to help students were taken over by the student councils. They are now equipped and I think they are also planning to send students back to vote.

“I’m not very worried about students because student affairs or student leaders are aware of what they need to do.

“This time around, I don’t think they will reach out to me because they’ve handled a major general election and hence state elections shouldn’t be a problem,” Alzari added.

The UndiRabu movement had during GE14 collected some RM200,000 in public donations and distributed the amount to nearly 3,000 voters, particularly students and those whose voting address is in Sabah and Sarawak.

Alzari said for GE15 the group collected about RM100,000.

He also reminded the public to be alert of potential scammers taking advantage of fundraising movements to cheat donors.

“They (scammers) claim to be collecting funds to send voters back but in the end, they disappear.

“On the other hand, we are very transparent. We will announce how much funds we have collected and how many voters we have helped to send back.

“But due to the Personal Data Protection Act, we cannot reveal more details than that,” he added. – June 22, 2023.