I was in Malaysia when the EC released Borang 1B in mid-Jan. Being the un-Malaysian I am, I printed out the form while I was in Malaysia and filled it in. In January. I have to admit while the form could have been better designed, the example provided on the EC's website was fairly clear and easy to understand. Essentially fill in your name, details, your constituency, why you can't vote in Malaysia, and the amount of time spent in Malaysia over the last 5 year's. The last bit was a bit tricky, as Malaysian immigration has stopped stamping entry and exit stamps on Malaysian passports for almost 15 years now. I had to dig through my documents to list out all my entry and exit dates.
Signed it, and walked to my local Pos Office Mini to send it off to the EC's address in Putrajaya. Didn't think too much about it until I came back to Brisbane in February 2013, where I noted that there was a option to check the status of the postal voter registration on the EC's website. Keyed in my IC number, and got the message that my application had been received. As the postal voting application(s) could only be processed once the Returning Officers were appointed for the constituencies, I left it at that.
In April 2013 I received a call in my Australian phone number from 03-8881 6607. Unfortunately when the call came I was in a meeting, and thus was unable to pick it up. As I know no one in Selangor who would call me, I was curious. A quick Google search indicated that it was the phone number for the "Unit Pengurusan Undi Pos" of the EC. So I called back. And was pleasantly surprised to get a nice girl who picked up my call. While I can't remember her name, she was polite and helpful. I recounted my question, and asked about my postal voting application. She requested for my IC number and my Australian contact details and promised to get back to me.
About 15 minutes later she called back and said it was because I had not put my email address in my application form. Somewhat reluctantly I gave my email address to her (I get enough spam as it is without having to have my email address plastered across government databases) and that was it.
She called back 10 minutes later and said that it had all been done, and recommended me to check my status on the EC's website. A quick check showed that my application had been marked as received and was in process.
Government departments usually get a bad reputation across the world, and I've had more of my share of dealing with incompetent government front line staff. To have this done in such a quick and efficient manner was a nice change. It was only a few months earlier where I had to deal with the Malaysian immigration department and they too were also very helpful to my query.
Note that while I had a good experience registering as a postal voter, and this was the first time the Malaysia had extended postal voting to all citizens outside of Malaysia (minus those in Singapore, South Thailand and Kalimantan) thus I was expecting issues, there is always room for improvement in the process.
Final thoughts;
1) Most of the registration issues I read via various sources online tended to be cause by the typical last minute attitude of Malaysians. Of course a website will crash if everyone is accessing it all at the same time. Its not exactly the EC's fault: should they spend all that money to upgrade their hardware to cope with 1000 connections a minute just for a few hours once every 5 years?
2) Speak BM. For better or worst, when dealing with government departments in Malaysia you need to use BM. Many of the videos I saw uploaded to Youtube recoding their calls to the EC had people starting off in English, or a mix of English with BM. I'm not saying you need to speak like A. Samad Said, but if an anglophile banana like me who hasn't used BM since he finished Form 5 can still say "Saya memangil mengenai status pemohonan undi pos saya", surely after 12 years of education one should have enough comprehension of BM to at least deal with government departments?
3) Be polite. Others I saw who posted their calls on Youtube started off the bat in a defensive or dismissive attitude when calling the EC. I know we don't like dealing with government departments, but the person on the other end of the line is still human.
