High time for Malaysia to implement e-Voting process, says don

KUCHING (Dec 3): It is high time for Malaysia to make full use of the latest technologies and implement electronic voting (e-Voting) process to offer greater convenience to voters so as to increase voter turnout, said Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow.

The Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia’s Faculty of Syariah and Laws associate professor regretted that the country remained stuck with the old method of face-to-face voting process.

He said such old-fashioned voting process “is rather archaic and inconvenient to many voters”.

“There are many advantages of e-Voting process, among which include faster counting (of votes) and delivering of election results,

increased trust in elections as human error could be avoided, increased voter turnout, especially when Internet voting is involved.

“Cost can also be reduced when e-Voting process is applied on multiple electoral events, as there will be reduced ballot waste. More importantly, voters can vote remotely, from home or any locations, according to the stipulated period set by the Election Commission (EC),” he said in a statement today.

The statement was issued following his observation during the recent Kemaman parliamentary by-election when the voters had to spend their weekend to cast their votes.

Through e-Voting process, Muzaffar said people with disabilities will be able to vote, thanks to features like sip-and-puff voting, paddle voting, high-contrast viewing screens and even audio voting.

According to him, e-Voting process would also allow people who are unable to reach the polling stations due to certain issues such as heavy rain or flash flood to cast their precious vote remotely, conveniently and safely.

He pointed out that e-Voting process can also prevent fraud, and reduce the chances of accidental or intentional variations in vote counts by reducing election workers who are directly involved in vote counting and tallying.

“With the prevailing technologies, e-Voting process can be carried out in several ways. E-Voting process can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and specialised voting kiosks (including self-contained direct-recording e-Voting systems).

“It can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet. In some cases, standaone e-Voting machines can be used,” he said.

The academician asserted that Malaysia could opt for the implementation of hybrid voting process, if it was not ready for a full e-Voting process.

He said hybrid voting process is a voting process that combines the best of both online and offline voting.

“In a hybrid voting process, voters can choose to cast their ballots either in person or electronically. This gives everyone the option to vote in the way that works best for them,” he added.

Muzaffar thus called on the EC to look into such proposal closely, adding: “We need to examine the country’s existing election laws as well as the Federal Constitution before making the proposal into a reality.”