Speaking to FMT, Wong said regardless of race, the procedure to inspect the fingers of voters will offend some people and may even deter them from coming out to vote.
“It will cause a lot of discomfort, regardless of whether the polling officer is a man or woman.
“This is especially so for women voters as they will feel uncomfortable,” he said.
The EC had yesterday announced that it will include the “finger massage” procedure in the 14th general election (GE14) to avoid any fraud during the voting process.
EC General Election Academy registrar Nik Aminudin Nik Shahar Shah said through the new procedure, clerks working at the polling station would examine voters’ fingers more carefully to ensure they are not wearing gloves or their fingers don’t have any ink stain on them.
“The clerk on duty will wear gloves to check the fingers of the voters before they are allowed to dip their finger in the indelible ink bottle.
“We are taking this measure as there are now many artificial finger gloves,” Nik Aminuddin was quoted as saying by Bernama.
Wong said that the new procedure will disrupt the already tight window of time voters have to mark their ballots on polling day.
“As it is, there are voters who can’t vote in time since the EC is so strict about stopping all voting at 5pm.
“With this new procedure, it will only take up more time. If the EC insists on doing so, they should consider extending voting hours to 7pm,” said Wong.
When asked if this new procedure would address concerns over voting fraud, Wong said it will only create more problems instead.
“When they introduced the indelible ink, it was to address fraud. But if you look at the last general election in 2013, it was a flop.
“They should address that problem, that is the usage and application of indelible ink. The indelible ink did not take into account postal and advance voters within Malaysia.
“Say if the postal and advance voters are given a week, can the indelible ink last that long? That is one concern that has not been addressed until today,” he said.
Another problem that could disrupt the voting process is the method of simultaneous voting that is exercised by certain polling stations.
“This happens when there are too many voters turning up at a particular time slot.
“This can cause a lot of problems as monitoring the voting process cannot be done properly and the voting process may turn chaotic,” he said.