Sabah elections: Expand postal voting to out of state students and others

WE, the undersigned organisations of Sabahans and other supporting civil society organisations, call upon the Election Commission (EC) to expand postal voting rights to out of state Sabahans in the Sabah state elections that will be held on Nov 29. 

This expansion may start with three particular groups that are operationally viable in the next three weeks: students in public universities outside Sabah, estimated to number from 40,000 to 50,000; Sabahans who are hospitalised or living in nursing homes; and candidates, election agents, polling and counting agents, and other persons on duty during the elections.

We call upon Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to instruct the Higher Education Ministry, the Health Ministry, and the Department of Social Welfare to assist the EC in expanding postal voting to as many Sabahan voters as possible who cannot vote in their constituency on polling day.

Expanding postal voting requires no amendment of any law. The EC has the power to declare new categories of individuals to be eligible for postal voting under Section 2 Paragraph 3(1)(e) of the Elections (Postal Voting) Regulations 2003.

To the advantage of the EC, Article 115 of the Federal Constitution requires that “all public authorities shall, at the request of the Commission, give the Commission such assistance in the discharge of its duties as may be practicable”.

Below are our proposals for the three groups based on a careful study of the legal and operational processes. The application may start on Nov 3 for the first two groups. While this short period of registration may limit the number of people who can register, it would still be greatly meaningful in the expansion of the right and facility to vote by postal ballot.

> Sabah students in public universities outside Sabah – These can be identified using the Transport Ministry’s FLYSiswa database; the new category would be 1D; registration deadline would be Nov 3; relevant parties to assist postal votes delivery would be student affairs departments or university/college management offices.

> Sabahans in hospitals and nursing homes – The new category would be 1E; registration deadline would be Nov 7; relevant parties to assist postal votes delivery would be administration offices of the institution.

> Candidates, election agents, polling and counting agents, and other persons on duty during the election – The new category would be 1A (expanding the existing category for EC officials); registration deadline would be Nov 15; relevant parties to assist postal votes delivery would be returning officers.

If the EC finds these to be unfeasible, we welcome an explanation for why they are deemed so. What the EC must not do is to again keep silent and ignore public opinion.

For the upcoming Sabah state elections, politicians and political parties – UPKO, PKR, PBS and Warisan – and civil society groups – Sabah’s “Vote Wisely” campaign, Suara Mahasiswa UMS, Bersih, Engage, ROSE, Tindak, and Projek Sama – have all called for expanding postal voting rights to all Sabahans who are out of state.

Regrettably, the EC has ignored all these voices and offered no explanation for creating a situation in which overseas Sabahans have the right to the postal vote but domestic out-of-state Sabahans are expected to fly into the state to cast their votes. More than a continuous marginalisation of Sabahans, this also creates a class division, separating the Sabahan diaspora into those who can afford to vote (ie fly back to Sabah) and those who cannot afford it.

We remind the EC and the Federal Government (as elections are a federal matter) that the turnout for this state election may be lower than 60% or even 50%, undermining the legitimacy of the next Sabah state legislature and the state government.

The EC and Federal Government must pay attention to two facts:

First, this is the second statewide election in Sabah after the implementation of automatic voter registration and the lowering of the voting age to 18, both of which expand the electorate and press down the turn out rate.

Second, turn out is historically low in Sabah, being lower by 5% to 7% compared with the national turn out rate from 2008 to 2018.

Joining these two factors, the turn out rate in the 15th General Election in 2022 was 74.7% nationwide but only 64.4% in Sabah – that’s a whopping gap of 10.3! Such a low turn out rate effectively means many Sabahan voices are being suppressed.

Despite being tasked with facilitating the voting rights of all Malaysian voters, the EC curiously has never published any research into the consistently lower-than-national turn out in Sabah (and also Sarawak), nor has it seemed to have sought a solution. With an estimated 200,000 Sabah voters – nearly 12% of the total electorate of 1.7 million – living in other states, one reasonably suspected factor is the chronic denial of postal voting to out-of-state voters.

The EC and the Federal Government must answer to the public if they do nothing and the turn out in the upcoming elections falls below 60% or worse.

After the Sabah elections, the EC should undertake these two measures:

> Build a database of who qualifies as a Sabahan out-of-state voter, with the assistance of the National Registration Department, so that the EC may better plan and prepare for postal voting.

> Recategorise postal voters in the Elections (Postal Voting) Regulations and the Elections (Registration of Electors) Regulations, hand-in-hand with the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Human Rights, Elections, and Institutional Reforms, which declare all voters in Sabah, Sarawak, Labuan, and Peninsular Malaysia who live outside their regions are absent voters, which would automatically qualify them for postal votes, just like overseas Malaysians.

SUARA MAHASISWA UMS

HAI MANDAK!

SABAH ENTITLEMENT & EQUITY NOW (SEEN)

CAHAYA SOCIETY

PACOS TRUST

PERSATUAN BERTINDAK PILIHAN RAYA BEBAS DAN SAKSAMA (TINDAK)

COALITION FOR CLEAN AND FAIR ELECTIONS (BERSIH)

ENGAGE

PERSATUAN PEMANGKIN DAYA MASYARAKAT (ROSE)

PROJECT STABILITY AND AKAUNTABILITY FOR MALAYSIA (SAMA)