GE15: My experience as a postal voter for the 2022 elections

Some history:

My experience as a postal voter during the 2021 Sarawak state elections

My experience registering and as a voter during the 2018 Federal Elections

My experience during the Sarawak state elections in 2016

My experience during the first time postal voting during GE 13

It has been nearly a decade since the fight to give Malaysian's living outside Malaysia the right to vote has been going on. There has been problems, issues, and challenges, but it would be unfair to say there has been no improvement, no matter how slow and glacial it is.

 

So on 10 Oct 2022, the backdoor government led by Ismail Sabri finally dissolved parliament, putting an end to the worst kept secret in Malaysia at that time. 

To its credit, the Electoral Commission opened postal voting applications on the same day. On the night of 10 Oct itself I applied for a postal vote, via the MySPR account, which I had from my experience as a postal voter during the 2021 Sarawak state elections. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If their transaction numbers are sequencial, I was the 8374th person that requested for a postal vote, on the actual day itselfof postal voting applications open.

5 days later, I got another email:

15 Oct was a Saturday, so someone at the EC was working late into Friday. Who says all government officers are inefficient?

So now the question was, how long would it take to get the ballot papers to me?

Nomination Day was 5 Nov 2022, so that was the earliest the EC could start printing the ballot papers.

So 5 Nov came and went. This is when the clock started ticking.

The earliest I heard of anyone getting a ballot paper was 11 Nov, a full week after nomination day. If one had received then, even with courier it was possible to get it back to the returning officer on time.

Over the weekend of 12 and 13 Nov, to DHL's credit, people started receiving their ballot papers. 

But for me? I became very familiar with my (physical) mailbox, checking it sometimes 3 times a day, waiting on my ballot papers. While people I knew started receiving their ballot papers.

Finally after returning from work on 16 Nov 2022, I found this:

It took 11 days, but my ballot papers finally arrived!

Inside the DHL envelope was a sealed (as in I needed a pair of scissors) envelope.

Looking at the tracking number, seems like my ballot papers were sent out 11 Nov, arriving to me on 16 Nov:

So that is problem No 1: it took a full 6 days to get my ballot papers out, and 5 days to get to me.

With election day on 19 Nov, and the rules stipulating that ballot papers needed to reach to the returning officers by 5pm on polling day, I didn't like my chances, even with courier, getting my ballot papers back within 3 days.

It became clear that there was a grassroots movement to link up people with people travelling back to Malaysia, echoing what happened in 2018.

In between MASCA QLD, AMSA, and various community groups dedicated to Malaysians in Brisbane, they set up collection points for the ballot papers, linking up with people who were travelling to Malaysia from Australia.

Ref: https://www.facebook.com/MASCA.Queensland/posts/pfbid0huXpNvzipSXSvhV8oQaqACAmAPvU9eYEL2tMvu3H2XErPZG31uQzXsabBvfEntUel

The closest one to me would be the one at QUT, so in the evening of a very windy Brisbane Wednesday, made my way back to my old stomping grounds.

 

I cannot thank the volunteers that put in all that time and effort to sit there the whole day, and the background counting and collecting, enough. I managed to get in by 7:23pm, when they closed for the day at 8pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this day, in this one collection point, they had received 60 ballots when I dropped mine off.

 

They even had indelible ink for the Malaysian Voting Experience™️©️®️

Got a shout out in the TVS Twitter account: https://twitter.com/tvstvmy/status/1592824720009101312

And that was it for me. Went home, had dinner, and resumed on with my life.

For the volunteers, the work was only beginning:

For what happened next, probably the following 2 news items are better than me explaining:

MalaysiaKini 18 Nov 2022: Malaysia’s diaspora sends tens of thousands of votes

Australia follows the UK with the most number of Malaysian residents. In Melbourne, 2,573 ballots were collected in six centres, and six flyers are due to return to Malaysia. Separately, another six flyers have carried Sydney’s 1,001 ballots from more than a dozen centres. In Sydney this morning, votes are still being collected by volunteer couriers who are flying back home today.

In Queensland, Hema Preya’s team bagged 540 ballots. Hema reported to the Global Bersih team that an airline pilot had agreed to carry ballots home to Malaysia. 

The Star, 18 Nov 2022: Youth volunteers urge EC to improve postal ballot system

Epilogue:

It has been a long journey to get here, from even getting government machinary to acknowledge the concept of postal voting for students in their own legislation, to increased time in getting ballot papers back. 

Progress is only made by people challenging the system with new ideas, not giving up because of inertia from mindsets past. As if the inertia of mindsets past was not new and novel previously.

Padungan Arch and translation

Honest question: has anyone ever paid attention to the pillars of the welcome arch on the eastern side of Padungan in Kuching?

Source 

I'll be honest: despite having driven under it and walked passed it, I never actually noticed that the pillars of the arch actually have words (Chinese characters) on them.

Until it was pointed out to me, and in the back recesses of my mind I was like, "Oh yeah, they _do_ have words on them".

Via the Sarawak Heritage Society, there has been some work to research and document the history of the Padungan area. At the time of writing this, SHS is working on a book. I don't want to pre-empt it, however I was given the privilege of assisting with the translation of the Chinese text on the pillars.

That was one way to spend a Saturday night.

Forword: this is my intepreatation/translation of this. Keeping in mind all I have is 6 years of Chinese primary school education. However, even I know, on the pillars, is very deep and high level Chinese literature level Chinese/Mandarin.

I'll be honest, for even the vast majority of a China Chinese, this is actually quite difficult. I would wager 99% of the Chinese speaking population in Malaysia wouldn't be able to explain/atriculate what these mean, even in Mandarin, let alone in any other language.

Also, next time the Chinese community in Malaysia is accused of not being loyal to the country, I would say, mahybe if you understood what they actually speak.

With that said, my translations:

At the top:

The arch is headed by the words 南海 and 瀛洲. 

南海： Literally southern sea, what we would call South China Sea today, but in the past, it was the sea area south of the China Mainland proper

瀛洲: very hard to translate. In Chinese mythology it is a mythological eastern island which is the home of immortals and source of elixir of immortality. Some intepret it to be Japan, but in this context, for the English language context, probably best translated to "promised land"

On the columns:

南海有仁邦
政通人和
宇靖年丰
昇平堪称盛世

南海有仁邦: literally "the southern sea has benevolence". 仁邦 is commonly used in medical clinics in Taiwan

政通人和: literally "the government and the people", but I would translate it as "A land of good governance"

宇靖年丰: A place of good harvest, but I agree with your "People have good income" translation

昇平堪称盛世: literally "The rise of the golden age". In this context I would say "Where fortunes are made"

 

瀛洲本仙岛
耕裕渔足
工赡貿富
安乐媲美桃源

瀛洲本仙岛: We are back to 瀛洲. Literally "This is the fabled promised land", which I think is not a bad translation

耕裕渔足: Literally "Ploughing and fishing", I would intepret it as "where fishermen have good catches and farmers have bountiful harvests"

工赡貿富: Literally "Worker-supported trade wealth", but I would translate it as "The industry/economic landscape supports trade and prosperity"

安乐媲美桃源: 桃源 literally means "the Land of Peach Blossoms". Meaning wise it means a (fictitious) land of peace and happiness, free from the disaster of war. I would translate it to "A place comparable to a (fictitious) land of peace and happiness, free from the disaster of war"

 

 

风下地
风和日丽
喜民洽族谐
政簡刑清
处处歌声杂笑语

风下地 & 风和日丽: very common in Chinese poetry, and in general use in the Mandarin language. Just ask anyone who had to write 作文 in primary school. Generally evokes a sunny and warm weather with a breeze: aka very good weather.

喜民洽族谐: people live together in peace and harmony. Note it doesn't necessarily have inter-racial conotations. Plenty of people of the same race have conflicts all the time. In the context of Malaysia maybe you'd want to put the inter-racial conotations, but I'll leave that to you.

政簡刑清: Good governance and transparent politics/decision making. I personally would beg to differ, but I suppose if your yardstick in Qing dynasty China (or even modern day PRC), yeah it is a step up.

处处歌声杂笑语: Where there is singing and laughter everywhere. Ie. No pain or sadness.

犀鸟乡
水绿山青
香稻收渔
长盈库满
家家富足又安宁

犀鸟乡: Literally "The village in the land of hornbills", but yes, "In this land of the Hornbills"

水绿山青: Another one commonly found in 作文 and Chinese tombstones. Literally "Green water and green mountains", but "Where the waters and clear and the hills are green" (aka good land that gives good water; important for a civilisation)

香稻收渔 长盈库满: Literally "Aromatic rice harvesting and fishing, long surplus and full storage", but essentially conveying a land of plenty, where the rice is fragrant,  the fish is plentiful, the stores are full all the time.

家家富足又安宁: Wealth and peace in every home. Very common phrased used for CNY and clan associations.

猫城山明水秀
各族爱国效忠
努力奋发
国臻昌盛

猫城山明水秀： Literally "The Cat City has beautiful mountains and water". No prizes for guessing what 猫城 means. 山明水秀 is again found commonly in Chinese tombstones. Literally "green hills and clear waters". Meaning wise, a place with picturesque scenery" Because in China that means beautiful mountains and clear rivers. I would translate this to Kuching/Cat city is a picturesque place.

各族爱国效忠: Where all races have patriotic allegiance to the country

努力奋发: Literally "[and] work hard and diligently". That works.

国臻昌盛: For the prosperity of the country

 

砂州物华天宝
百姓乐群敬业
勤劳建设
共享繁荣

This part is easy, and can be easily put into its own poen even in English:

Sarawak, a state of prosperity
Where the masses are dedicated in their contributions/work
In building its society/development
Sharing in its prosperity

地灵毓秀
贤能莘荟展雄才
政通邦治
国泰民安

地灵毓秀： the earth's/place's spirits are rich in beauty

贤能莘荟展雄才： full of capable and talented people

政通邦治: Its pronounced "ZhengtongBangzhi". This is a tricky one: Literally "efficient government and administration". But "good and transparent governance" works for me too.

国泰民安: found everywhere in many parts of Chinese communities all around the world. The country is prosperous and the people are at peace.

My experience as a postal voter during the 2021 Sarawak State Elections

Ref: My experience registering and as a voter during the 2018 Federal Elections

Ref 2: My experience during the last Sarawak state elections in 2016

On 3 Nov 2021, the Agong released the State of Emergency that was put on Sarawak in Aug 2021 to maintain the legitimacy of a government in Sarawak during the 3rd wave of the COVID19 pandemic. 

On 11 Dec, I was reading the Federal Gazette's (yes I know) and stumbled upon P.U. (B) 548/2021, elegantly titled "Notification under paragraph 3(1)(e) for the purpose of general election for the seat of the legislative assembly of the state of Sarawak", dated 7 November.

 

At this point there was no public news about this in any Malaysian media.

I also noticed that there was P.U. (B) 549/2021, which contained and announced the postal voter registration periods for the 12th Sarawak State Election. Dated 7 Nov 2021.

I also discovered this at the EC's website: https://www.spr.gov.my/ms/pusat-media/berita/permohonan-undi-pos-pru-dun-sarawak-ke-12

Keeping in mind, the EC only put out a official press release on 11 Nov 2021 for the Sarawak State Election, 4 days after the Gazette notice, and keeping the 24 Nov 2021 closing date for applications for postal voting. And the first news article that mentioned about Postal Voting applications being open as a full 8 days later.

Having said that, for the 2021 Sarawak State Election, the decision had been made to open up postal voting, and even those in Singapore, Kalimantan, could now also apply for a postal vote, in light of the (international) travel restrictions caused by the COVID19 pandemic.

However, Sarawakian's outside of Sarawak in Malaysia would be denied the option for postal voting, as would people living in places within Sarawak different to their registered constituencies. How convenient.

BERSIH Sarawak would only put out a video on postal voting applications on 13 Nov:

To recap: 

 

Gazette notice dated 7 Nov 2021 

EC press release on 11 Nov 2021

BERSIH Sarawak video on 13 Nov 2021

First news article about postal voting on 16 Nov 2021

Borneo Post article on "Overseas Sarawakians say keen on postal voting" on 18 Nov 2021

Postal voting applications closed on 24 Nov 2021

 

This was the first step to voter disenfranchisement.

I put in a application to be a postal voter on 12 Nov 2021. To be fair, it was really painless. Especially if one read/followed the instructions in the PDF. The whole process is now online via MySPRDaftar, which is an improvement over the past where I had to manually download Borang 1B, fill it in, sign it, scan it, and email it to upup@spr.gov.my.

(Trivia: UPUP = Unit Pengurusan Undi Pos, aka the Postal Voting Management Unit within the EC)

That bit, to register for a postal vote, is now online, and so is registering to vote! (Notwitstanding AVR)

It is actually 2 steps: 1 to register for MySPRDafar, and to actually fill in Borang 1B digitally. 

I got confirmation of my postal voter registration application on 22 Nov 2021:

(Side note:is it just me, or am I the only person that finds it weird in Malaysia that there still needs to be the dislaimer that documents are actually compter generated and no signature is required? I mean, all documents in these day and age started life in a computer, possibly crafted in Microsoft Word. Was there ever a time where all documents were signed? And by whom? And somehow that meant the document was valid, because signatures are totally not forgable?)

And my postal voter application was approved on 26 Nov 2021:

🥳

So the clock starts ticking here: when would my postal voting ballow papers arrive?

On 24 Nov 2021, the Writs for the 2021 Sarawak State Election were issued. Candidate nomination would be on 6 Dec 2021. Early voting would be done on 14 Dec 2021. The actual voting day would be 18 Dec 2021.

 At 6 Dec 2021, the official line was "From the total figure, 1,228,858 or 98.15 per cent are regular voters, 12,585 military personnel and spouses, 10,458 police personnel and spouses, while 113 are overseas voters."

The question was, how long would it take for the ballot papers to reach me? And would I have enough time to get it back to be counted?

On 9 Dec 2021, I got a SMS, of a delivery for me:

They had sent out the ballot papers on 9 Dec 2021, 3 days after nomination day.

On the morning of 13 Dec, I received a SMS:

Was a bit of a 😲 moment for me. And of all days, to be in the office. Considering that FedEx had a ETD of 15 Dec:

 Came home to this in the mailbox:

Fun fact: FedEx/TNT use BP Petrol stations as alternate delivery points. Which is handy as most of them are open late, if not 24 hrs. And there is one not far from my place, which is where they left it. Is good for deliveries where no one is at home, and instead of needing to go to the mail depot, just go to the local servo. 

Got to the BP Petrol station, and the labour shortage is real: one person, serving 5 people:

 

Interesting moment picking it up: as Australia doesn't have a ID system like Malaysia, so the way they authenticate delivery is by sending a one time code to the mobile phone number. 

So I got to the BP servo, and when it was my turn, the poor overworked person went to the back to find and retrieve the package, and then I get a SMS with a 6 digit code, and the staff can only hand over the package to meonce I've given them the code which the staff entersand is verified to be correct.

Returned home with a lot of package:

Inside the massive FedEx envelope, was a smaller envelope:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 All nicely sealed up with the ballot papers and envelopes inside.

Interesting tidbit: the whole thing was actually sent by MoFA. Look at the address of the FedEx envelope, and the address from the EC envelope. So it goes from EC -> MoFA before it even leaves the country.

Why can't the EC just send it directly? Instead of needing double handling? I suppose one small saving grace is that they're both located in Putrajaya:

 

So here I am, on the evening of 13 Dec, and for my vote to count, the ballot papers need to reach the returning officer by 5pm 18 Dec 2021.

Could that be possible?

I had done my research, and found a courier that was hopefully able to do it. So on lunch hr of 14 Dec 2021, paid nearly AUD40, to send off my ballot papers via DHL.

Yes, there are envelopes inside envelopes. It is like Matryoshka envelope's being a postal voter. 

Unfortunately, despite all that, my ballot papers arrived too late to be counted:

Nearly a decade on after Malaysian's living outside of the country were given the right to do postal voting, after much lobbying from civil society, teething problems persist, primarily in the issue of getting the ballot papers to voters on time, and voters having enough time to get the ballot papers back. 

While much has been said about returning the ballot papers in a timely fashion, and timeframes have been expanded compared to previous state and federal elections, the reality is, the time between candidate nomination, printing the ballot papers, and in between election day, is not long enough. Particularly the requirement to get the ballot papers to the returning officer on the day itself.

One option is to allow more time for overseas postal votes, say up to a week after the official polling day. Australian elections do that: postal votes are accepted and counted up to 10 days after Polling Day. 

Voter turnout in the 2021 Sarawak State Election was 60.67%, not helped by the Omicron variant and high airfares to Sarawak, plus the disenfrancisement of UNDI18 voters coupled with setting the elections to avoid a new batch of voters from Automatic Voter Registration (AVR).

One has to ask, was it really a 'landslide' victory for GPS, given the playing field was not even to begin with, and mathematically most Sarawakian's would not have voted?

Believe it or not, they printed out my electronically submitted Borang 1B, and actually marked it off by hand 😅