Will Malaysia consider postal voting due to Covid-19?

: Fresh off the state election in Sabah, Malaysia is now dealing with a third wave of Covid-19 cases, blamed on the carelessness and complacency that marked the campaign period.

“Postal voting can be applied. So people can post their vote and be counted,” said Prof Dr Marzuki Isahak, a specialist at the Department of Occupational Safety and Health at Universiti Malaya. As of Oct 18, 443 travellers from Sabah, most of whom were involved with the election, have tested positive for COVID-19 and generated at least 24 clusters in other parts of Malaysia. From single-digit figures in August, Malaysia saw its highest daily cases of 871 on Oct 18.

EC member Zoe Randhawa seems daunted when faced with the idea of opening postal voting to millions of people for GE15, while also ensuring everything is done properly and transparently within a short time. Unlike other overseas Malaysians, people living in these areas cannot vote via post because of their proximity to the country. In GE13 and GE14, voters there were required to cross the border and go home to vote.

Due to the pandemic, the number of postal voters from presently eligible groups is expected to explode because of all the travel restrictions in place in the country and in the world. However, the one group the EC decided against adding to the list of postal voters, for now, is the elderly, who doctors say are the ones most vulnerable to the coronavirus.A few countries are holding elections in the next few months, with the most famous being the United States. There has been a sustained push by various voting rights groups to encourage the elderly, who are at high risk of dying from Covid-19, to vote by mail.

She said postal votes already have a higher risk of being rejected as it requires the voter to fill out an identity declaration form in a particular way. Though many may question the wisdom of having a snap election during a pandemic – estimated to cost RM1.2 billion – most political experts agree an election is the only way to end the political turmoil that has marred Malaysian politics since the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government in February. The current Perikatan Nasional coalition government has been deflecting accusations of illegitimacy since then.

Voting is not an issue, campaigning is.

Even regular votes, box go missing and reappear magically. What more postal votes

Is our postal system up to it, demographically? Sabotage, delays, replacements? Selling of votes for money? Literacy to fill & return? Too many discouraging factors if on a national scale.

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