(Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): The Election Commission should make full use of Information Technology in the current voters’ registration exercise, including allowing Malaysians inside and outside the country to register online.
There is an official homepage for the Election Commission, at (http://penerangan.gov.my/spr/) but most unfortunately, there is not a single mention about the current voters’ registration exercise, which ranks as one of the most important functions of the Election Commission in its constitutionally-mandated task to conduct free and fair elections in the country.
The Election Commission homepage on the Internet should deal with the most current activities or not be a historic archive of past events.
The Election Commission should post online on its homepage all the particulars and details about the voters’ registration exercise, the full list of the voters’ registration centres in every state, time of registration, etc, as well as a full list of hot-lines for members of the public to contact for inquirieis.
The Election Commission homepage provides an email facility, but this is not functioning, as emails sent to the email address concerned are bounced back with the note "User unknown".
I am concerned that the Election Commission seems to be going about the voters’ registration campaign in a very low-key manner, when it should be conducting a very aggressive campaign to ensure the maximum registration of eligible voters, especially as this could be the last voters’ registration exercise before the next general elections.
(11/2/98)