On March 9, the DAP election strategist said that EC’s second round of public display for the 2016 constituency redelineation exercise was unconstitutional because it excluded the parliamentary and state seats in Selangor.
Now, it appears there is a discrepancy in the list of polling districts within a state seat under the Pagoh parliamentary seat, whose incumbent is Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia president Muhyiddin Yassin.
“By going through the first redelineation proposal first published on Sept 15, 2016 (Syor 1) and the second redelineation proposal published on March 8, 2017 (Syor 2), I was able to identify polling districts which were included in Syor 1 but were excluded in Syor 2,” Ong said.
He gave the example of the Kampong Teratai polling district, with 876 voters, which was listed under the state constituency of N9 Gambir, under P144 Ledang, in the state of Johor.
“Kampong Teratai was one of many polling districts that were taken out of the P143 Pagoh parliament seat and moved into the P144 Ledang parliament seat.
“Surprisingly, in Syor 2, the Kampong Teratai polling district is missing. This matters because if the 876 voters in Kampong Teratai do not know which state and parliamentary seat they have been placed, they cannot object to the redelineation exercise as shown in Syor 2,” he said.
Ong, who is also Serdang MP, said he also found other discrepancies, including new polling districts added to Syor 2 but not mentioned in Syor 1.
“While the EC has the right to add new polling stations, it must do so under Section 7 (2) of the Elections Act 1958. The Election Commission reconfigured existing and added new polling stations on the 29th of April, 2016 under this provision in the Elections Act 1958.
“It cannot add new polling districts between Syor 1 and Syor 2 of the delimitation exercise. But this was exactly what the EC did when it added Taman Rimba in the state constituency of N30 Mentakab (P88 Temerloh) in Syor 2,” he said.
He added that similar to the earlier example, adding a new polling district affects the ability of voters to make objections to the redelineation exercise as shown in Syor 2 since voters may not know that they have been assigned to the new polling station after having previously viewed Syor 1.
Ong called for the EC to “immediately answer” the two allegations against them, saying any “failure to do so would affect the constitutionality and the procedural validity of the entire delimitation exercise for the States of Malaya”.