The party’s information chief, Joniston Bangkuai, said the divisions should “proactively” vet the roll to ascertain the identity of the new voters.

“Compile and report these findings to the party headquarters so that we have a basis to pursue the next course of action, “Joniston said in a statement.

Recently, the Election Commission (EC) reported an increase of 574,120 new voters in Sabah between 2018 and 2020.

It also stated that the surge in new voters was not linked to the Undi18 initiative, which came into effect on Dec 15 last year.

Joniston said the spike of more than half a million new voters since the last state election warranted a thorough review of the electoral roll.

It also vindicated the party’s concern over the likelihood of illegitimate voters emerging from automatic registration, he said.

He said PBS would be exploring legal avenues to dig into the relevant data to scrutinise the state’s significant growth in registered voters.

PBS president Maximus Ongkili had previously said while the party supported the automatic registration of those aged 18 as voters, it should not be extended to Sabah until after the existing voter list had been vetted and verified thoroughly.

This is because there have been reports and complaints of suspicious voters in previous elections.