ELD remains silent on voter complaints of being deprived of voting rights due to its lapses

SINGAPORE: Alarming administrative lapses during the General Election 2020 (GE2020) have been brought to the forefront by the Red Dot United (RDU), with approximately 200 voters having their voting rights as citizens being deprived.

RDU’s secretary-general, Mr Ravi Philemon, revealed in a poignant statement on his Facebook page, “The voter expressed to me that he is very distressed by not receiving his Poll Card and not being able to vote in the Presidential Election 2023 (PE2023).”

The missing name of a Tanjong Pagar GRC resident from the Registers of Electors, certified on 20 July 2023, instigated the outcry.

The same voter disclosed his dismay over the Elections Department’s (ELD) non-response after sending five emails regarding the issue.

In a more direct approach, Philemon wrote to Mr Chan Chun Sing, the Minister-in-charge of the Public Service, saying, “the right to vote in Parliamentary and Presidential elections is implied within the structure of our Constitution.”

He added, “the seemingly cavalier manner in which the ELD is treating a voter who is denied his right to vote in the Presidential Election, through no fault of his own, is unacceptable.”

ELD in response to media queries noted that a preliminary investigation revealed that the National Registration Identity Cards (NRICs) of some voters might not have been adequately scanned by the electronic registration devices utilized in the 2020 polling stations. Consequently, their voter attendance data was not captured in the system.

To date, about 200 Singaporeans have inquired with the ELD regarding this issue.

Although ELD conceded its mistake in a prior press release, they implied that voters should have verified the revised registers in June and July 2023.

Addressing this, Mr Philemon retorted, “Voters who voted in GE2020 would rightfully assume that their names were on the register. Furthermore, in their statement, the ELD seems to have shifted the blame for its serious error to the voters who are affected by this fiasco.”

As concerns mount, it has come to light that the distressed voter is contemplating legal recourse, viewing this oversight as a violation of his voting rights.

In a broader call to action on 25 August, the RDU urged the ELD to initiate a comprehensive and transparent investigation.

It called for accountability after ELD issued its press release regarding additional poll cards being printed and issued to voters, and the admission that the NRIC scanning might not have been done correctly during the GE2020.

Their official stance highlighted that, “Considering that these failures in process have serious implications on the integrity of how elections are conducted in Singapore, superficial explanations given in a cavalier manner are insufficient.”

The party also pressed for greater transparency, noting, “ELD has to give a proper account as to why 200 voters, through no fault of theirs, cannot be added to the register immediately rather than being required to sit out the Presidential Election.”

While RDU recognises that failures occur in any system, the election process of political office holders is too fundamental a pillar of a democracy to be handled in such a superficial manner.

It states that Singaporeans need to be able to understand how these failures occurred and whether it is a case of human error, technological error, or a combination of both.

“As it stands, the statements from the ELD unearth more questions than answers and have created unnecessary anxiety among voters.”

Despite the seriousness of these allegations, neither the secretary-general of RDU nor the affected voter has reportedly received any response from the ELD.