Making The Case For The Use Of Indelible Ink

6 March 2008 | 1,071 views

More food for thought.

A. In the Elections Act 1954:

10. No person shall be entitled to be entered on the electoral rolls as an elector in more than one constituency for the purposes of any election.

B. In the Election Offences Act 1954:

7. Every person who at an election applies for a ballot paper in the name of some other person, whether that name be that of a person living or dead, or of a fictitious person or who, having voted once at any such election, applies at the same election for a ballot paper in his own name, shall be guilty of the offence of personation.

C. In the Elections (Conduct of Elections) Regulations 1981:

20. (1) The presiding officer at any polling station may, in his discretion, require any voter, before he is given a ballot paper, to furnish such evidence of his identity as the presiding officer may deem necessary and to make and subscribe to the declaration set out in Form I 1 in the First Schedule and every such declaration shall be exempt from stamp duty.

(2) If any person fails to furnish such evidence or refuses to make such declaration, the presiding officer shall refuse to give him a ballot paper.

Look closely at items A, B and C.

Under A, you can only be a registered voter for one constituency.

Under B, a voter who tries to vote more than once is guilty of the offence of personation.

It can be argued that one of the reasons for having C — the power to require proof of identity — is to enforce against and prevent B — the offence of personation — from occurring.

The act of requiring proof of identity is not only for the purpose of establishing voter identity, it is also for the purpose of establishing the fact that the voter who appears before the election officer has not already voted.

In other words, the officer is requesting from you some form of identification, not only to establish that you are who you say you are, but also to counter-check against the voter roll to ensure your name has not been crossed out. If your name has been crossed, it means you have voted.

Now, the use of indelible ink is basically to prevent voters from both voting more than once, and having voted once, prevent voters from voting “in the name of some other person”; the mark on your finger is evidence that you have voted.

Therefore, is not the use of indelible ink and the consequent mark on your finger a form of identification for the purpose of preventing the offence of personation?

In fact, the use of indelible ink would also go far in preventing fraudulent voting by any person who is in possession of multiple IDs with different names and has used those IDs to register as a voter in multiple constituencies.

Would not the use of indelible ink strengthen A — the prohibition against multiple constituency voter registrations by a single person — immeasurably?

If all this is so, can it not be argued that the use of indelible ink is allowed for under existing law?

EC chairman Bullshit Abdul Rashid said this yesterday:

Abdul Rashid said … the overriding factor in making the decision was constitutional considerations.

“If we were to proceed (with the use of the ink), it could be deemed we are violating the rights of voters as we would be forcing them to undergo the ink marking,” he said when interviewed on a special election talkshow aired by private television station TV3 Wednesday night.

He added that he very much wanted to have it used during this election but the legal experts warned against it on the grounds of voters’ right. [Bernama]

Bullshit, Rashid.

I rest my case.

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