Its chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah said this was being done by exploiting a provision in the Elections (Registration of Electors) Regulations 2002 that allows for objections to be made against a person newly registering as voter.
She pointed to an incident on Monday where a Bersih 2.0 monitoring team saw several dubious filings of objections by a group that was apparently being directed by an “agency”.
“The objection provision in the regulations is in place to weed out phantom voters,” Maria explained at a press conference here today.
“But unfortunately, the recent trend in objections may give rise to a misperception that there is a conscious effort to block new voters from registering.”
She said once an objection is filed on someone registering as a voter, the person would have to be present at the Electoral Commission’s (EC) office for an inquiry and show evidence that he or she is a legitimate voter in the constituency.
When the individual is proven to be genuine, the one who filed the objection is then obliged to compensate RM100 to the registering voter.
Maria said the Bersih 2.0 team had spent two hours at the EC’s office in Shah Alam on Monday to monitor the process of the objections.
She said they witnessed a suspicious group filing objections based on instructions given by an “agency”.
“A group of men and women who acted as objectors were being instructed by a single person,” she said. “
“A voter asked the objector when the compensation would be paid. The objector said she will be paid within three months by an ‘agency’.”
Activist Ivy Josiah who was present with the team attempted to take a picture of the exchange but had her phone snatched away by a man.
“That man, aged around 30 to 35, grabbed my phone and I was stunned. He told me that I cannot take pictures,” Ivy said.
“I then told him that I was from an NGO that’s looking at electoral reform and we have the right to be here. So I grabbed my phone back.
“He turned around and said: ‘Do you know who I am? I’m from ‘Jaringan Melayu’. Then I said ‘I’m from ‘Jaringan Malaysia’. It then ended there.”
Maria said the EC had a duty to ensure legitimate voters are registered and to prevent abuse of the electoral process.
She pointed out that there is no accountability to ensure the RM100 was compensated to bona fide voters who were affected.
“What are the enforcement mechanisms to ensure that the RM100 fines are paid? If there are 100 objections being rejected every day, this could amount up to RM10,000 in fines per day.
“In fact, this is not the first time we encountered this issue. As far as we know, it has been going on for two years.
“The same issue was raised by DAP MP Ong Kian Ming in 2015 and we had also received similar complaints that year.”
Maria appealed to the public to check their voter’s registration status, reminding them to attend EC hearings if they had received an objection letter.
“We urge voters facing objections to make a conscious effort and sacrifice their time to turn up at EC hearings to claim their right to vote.
“We also call upon all authentic new voters who face such issues to contact Bersih 2.0 so that we can seek clarification from the EC.”