‘Technical glitch’ causing issues with Kota Kinabalu PKR’s physical voting session

KOTA KINABALU: A technical glitch is said to be the reason why some voters who turned up for the physical voting in PKR's party polls could not vote for the Kota Kinabalu branch committee positions on Sunday (May 22).

In a statement here, Datuk Christina Liew, who was defending the post of Kota Kinabalu branch head, was surprised when informed by voters that the list of candidates vying for those posts were missing from the voting tablet provided by the party election committee (JPP).

The Sabah PKR physical voting was held from 8am to 4pm at all branches on Sunday, where the voting centre for Kota the Kinabalu branch was housed at a hotel in Sembulan here.

"When I arrived at the hotel, many voters reported that they could not find my name as a candidate for the post of branch head.

"In fact, the whole line-up of candidates for the branch committee, wanita committee and youth committee had disappeared from the tablet," said the Api-Api assemblyman.

It is learned that only the line-up of candidates for the party's central leadership council (MPP) appeared on the tablet for them to vote, where these affected voters could vote for only three people for MPP because they spotted only three names.

Liew was informed that a voter, who was a lawyer, did query why the list of candidates for the KK Branch Committee was not shown, following which one of the supervisors reset the tablet and the list became visible.

But it became invisible again later for other voters, she added.

At one stage, one supervisor allegedly said to the voters: "Ini saja yang boleh undi" (only this can be voted for) when they inquired why only the MPP list of candidates were available on the voting tablet.

Liew said on her side, she would be looking into this matter to get more clarification.

Kota Kinabalu PKR branch saw a total of 1,435 voters cast their votes for the central and branch levels, where 460 were through physical voting on Sunday, 821 through e-voting which was held earlier from May 18 to 20, and 154 had been listed as dubious voters, bringing the turnout percentage to 16.11%.

The JPP was expected to release the results for all 26 branches in Sabah in a few weeks' time, said Liew.