"PROUD" TO BE FROM SIBU?

Sibu postal balloting deferred

By JAMES WONG
Sunday March 2, 2008

SIBU: The postal balloting for the army and police personnel in the Sibu parliamentary seat has been postponed following the discovery of a double registration of postal voters in the electoral roll.

A total of 2,618 postal ballots (2,050 for the army and 568 for the police) were supposed to be released to the respective officers at the Resident’s Office yesterday for postal balloting to take place.

Agents for DAP's Richard Wong Ho Leng found that the electoral roll contained 13 duplicate names of postal voters.

However, Wong said a check by the Election Commission on its computer showed there were only 10 double registrations for the constituency – voters with slightly different names but with the same identity card numbers who registered on different days.

An SUPP spokesman here confirmed that postal voting did not take place yesterday.

Wong, who is also DAP state chairman, said the EC had postponed the release of the postal ballots as a result.

The police personnel will only get the ballot papers on Tuesday and the army on Thursday.
“We cannot allow any irregularities. Every vote is sacred,” he added.

Wong is facing Barisan Nasional’s incumbent Robert Lau Hoi Chew and Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s Robert Lim Chin Chuang in the Chinese-majority seat with 53,679 voters.