Just 6,649 out of 185,000 overseas Singaporeans registered as overseas voters for Presidential Election

SINGAPORE: The Elections Department (ELD) revealed on Wednesday that of the more than 185,000 Singaporeans residing overseas, 6,649 have registered as overseas voters for the upcoming presidential election.

Notably, 3,432 of these voters have opted for postal voting, a first in Singapore’s electoral history.

These developments are attributed to the amendments to the Presidential Elections Act and the Parliamentary Elections Act, made in March this year.

The changes to the Acts also made it such that existing overseas voters need not re-register with every revision of the registers of electors ahead of an election. Their voting status is maintained unless they opt out or are removed from the registers.

These overseas voters make up approximately 0.25 per cent of the 2,709,407 voters registered for the forthcoming election.

ELD has also informed postal voters that they can now download their postal ballot paper and return envelope from the ELD’s voter services portal on its website via the Singpass log-in.

To ensure their votes are counted, postal voters are urged to send their ballots back promptly. The ballot, marked within its envelope, should be postmarked before the Polling Day on 1 September and must be received by the Returning Officer in Singapore by 11 September .

In addition, voters designated to cast their votes at one of the 10 overseas polling stations will receive an ePoll letter detailing the voting schedule for their specific location.

A copy of this letter can be retrieved on the ELD’s website through Singpass. The overseas polling stations are located in major cities including Beijing, Canberra, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.

For those overseas voters who find themselves in Singapore on Polling Day, ELD clarifies that they can vote at their designated polling station in Singapore.

The details of this station will be provided on a physical poll card mailed to their address as registered on their Singapore NRIC or their local contact address.

This information is also available on their ePoll card on the Singpass app and the ELD website up till the day of polling.

Upon arrival at the polling station on 1 September, which is a public holiday, voters must confirm that they haven’t previously voted in this election before they receive their ballot paper.

ELD reiterated that every overseas voter is entitled to vote just once during an election, either overseas or at a designated polling station in Singapore.

In a retrospective look, there were 5,504 registered overseas voters during the 2011 presidential election. From this number, 3,375 cast their votes in nine cities across Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, America, and the United Arab Emirates.