JOHOR BARU: More than 2.72 million Johor voters are eligible to vote at 1,076 polling centres across the state in the 16th Johor election, says Election Commission (EC) secretary Datuk Khairul Shahril Idrus.
He said voters were encouraged to cast their ballots according to the recommended voting time stated in the MySPR Semak application to help ensure a smooth polling process.
“However, voters may still vote at any time between 8am and 6pm, or according to the gazetted operating hours of their respective polling centres,” he said in a statement yesterday.
According to EC statistics gazetted on May 21, a total of 2,727,926 registered voters are eligible to vote in this election, comprising 2,703,175 ordinary voters and 24,751 early voters from the police and military, along with their spouses.
Of the early voters, 12,710 are police personnel and their spouses, while 12,041 are military personnel and their spouses.
The state’s electorate is almost evenly split between genders, with 1,364,763 male voters (50.03%) and 1,363,163 female voters (49.97%).
In terms of ethnicity, Malays make up the largest voting bloc at 53.87%, followed by Chinese (35.97%), Indians (7.18%) and other ethnic groups (2.99%).
Senior citizens aged 60 and above account for 543,293 registered voters, representing 19.92% of the electorate, while 56,655 voters, or 2.08%, are persons with disabilities (OKU).
To facilitate polling, the EC has established 1,140 polling centres, including 64 designated for early voting and 1,076 for ordinary voting today.
The EC also increased the number of voting streams to 4,980, up by 199 or 4.16% from the 4,781 streams used in the previous state election.
National schools remain the primary polling venues, housing 681 polling centres, followed by 164 secondary schools, 131 religious schools, 80 community halls and 28 village halls.
The remaining polling centres comprise seven kindergartens, 48 premises classified under the “others” category and one open field or parking area.
Khairul Shahril said the EC had completed inspections of election materials, including ballot boxes, indelible ink, ballot papers and voting booths to ensure all equipment were in good condition before being distributed to presiding officers.
“A total of 43,036 election workers will be on duty to ensure the polling process runs smoothly.”
He reminded voters to bring their identity cards for verification and advised them to check their polling centre, voting stream and voter serial number through the MySPR Semak portal, the MySPR Semak mobile application, the EC hotline or at verification counters provided at polling centres.
Khairul Shahril advised voters not to hand over their identity cards to anyone other than authorised election officials.
With the official campaign period ending at 11.59pm yesterday, he reminded all candidates and political parties to cease all forms of campaigning, including appeals for votes at polling centres and on social media platforms.
“Political parties and candidates are also prohibited from setting up, building or operating campaign booths on polling day as this is an offence under the Election Offences Act 1954.”
He reminded voters that mobile phones are not permitted inside polling streams.
Khairul Shahril said voters, candidates and election workers were prohibited from wearing clothing, caps, face masks or carrying materials bearing the names, logos, symbols, photographs or campaign slogans of any political party or candidate into polling centres.
“We hope all parties will comply with the election laws.”
