Sarawak polls set for Dec 12 - The Straits Times

Nomination Day will be on Nov 28, while early polling will take place on Dec 8.

KUCHING – Sarawak will go to the polls on Dec 12, with nomination day on Nov 28, Malaysia’s Election Commission (EC) announced on Nov 6.

EC chairman Ramlan Harun said early voting will take place on Dec 8.

“The election writ is dated today,” he told a press conference on Nov 6 after chairing a special meeting to decide the polls’ key dates.

Ramlan said the latest electoral roll of September, which was updated as of Oct 25, would be used in the state election.

He said the roll contained 2,058,781 voters, comprising 2,034,373 ordinary voters, 13,575 military personnel and their spouses and 10,833 police personnel and their spouses.

Ramlan also said the EC will expand the implementation of the Optical Character Recognition Voter Attendance (OCRVA) pilot system during the Sarawak polls.

“It will be used at all polling streams in every polling station across the 82 state constituencies in Sarawak,” he said.

In addition, Ramlan said the EC had appointed 82 returning officers for the polls, who will be assisted by 305 assistant returning officers.

To monitor campaign activities during the election, he said the EC will set up 82 campaign enforcement teams, which will include police personnel, local authorities and representatives of candidates.

Ramlan said applications for postal votes had been opened starting Oct 26 and will close on Nov 25 for election workers, EC members and officials as well as police, military and media personnel.

For Malaysians overseas as well as agencies and organisations, the closing date is Nov 20.

Meanwhile, the EC said in a statement that 97 nomination centres and vote tallying centres will be used in the Sarawak election.

It said 40,505 election workers will be appointed to conduct the election process.

“There will be 82 early voting centres with 106 polling streams and 1,945 polling stations with 4,482 streams,” it said.

The EC added that the Sarawak election was estimated to cost RM174.94 million (S$55.3 million).

Ramlan later handed over letters of appointment to the 82 returning officers.

The Sarawak Legislative Assembly was dissolved on Oct 26, paving the way for the polls. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK