EC secretary Abdul Ghani Salleh said the instruction was an early notification to state elections directors before the official notification letter to all political parties was issued in the near future.
“This applies not only to political parties, but also to all other interested quarters,” he said in a statement yesterday.
He explained that based on Rule 13, Election Regulations (Registration of Voters) 2002, exhibiting the draft of the Supplementary Electoral Roll (DPT) was carried out in places gazetted as places for exhibiting the draft of the DPT for 14 days by displaying a list of the names of applicants who applied for registration as new voters, and voters who applied for change of addresses of constituencies.
“During this exhibition period, the DPT draft is open for review by the public, including political parties, to submit claims or objections to the list of names displayed in the DPT draft,” he said.
Prior to this, he explained, it was the practice of the EC to distribute the DPT draft to political parties for the purpose of notification that the process of checking was taking place.
“However, at the 773rd EC Meeting on March 28, it was decided that the DPT draft (books and hard disc) would no longer be distributed to political parties from the 2017 First Quarter DPT draft exhibition,” he said.
Ghani said the decision was made in view of the sufficient exhibiting processes to enable stakeholders to check the names of the applicants involved.
He said at this time, interested parties still had full access to the DPT draft on display to check claims and for objection purposes.
Cessation of the practice does not at any time limit the access of stakeholders to the DPT on display and, at the same time, there are no legal requirements for the EC to do so.
He said the EC would send a formal notification letter to all political parties on this matter soon.