EVERY citizen after a certain age has to fulfill their civic duty to vote for the party they believe is right to run the nation.
A young man did not let distance stop him from doing his duty as a Malaysian citizen currently living in California, USA.
Alex Toh shared in a Facebook post on August 6 that he and his wife as well as another friend of theirs volunteered to help collect ballots from other Malaysian voters in the Sacramento and Folsom area and pass them to the runner stationed in the Bay Area at the time.
He also mentioned that he did not vote during the 15th General Elections (GE15) therefore, he did not intend to repeat the same mistake again.
But Alex’s journey in posting his ballot was an arduous one as his car was broken into after dropping the ballots off to the runner with his window shattered so he, together with his wife and child had no choice but to brave the harsh cold wind blowing in their faces from Oakland back to their area.
“We went for dinner in Oakland after the ballot delivery. After dinner we found our car windows were smashed. We had to drive back to Folsom with back windows broken and 10’C out there for two hours,“ Alex recounted in another Facebook post.
It was also noted that Alex, his wife and another friend of his did not receive their ballots earlier and they were running out of time as the nearest runner in charge of collecting their votes was stationed in Los Angeles (LA).
The other issue they had to overcome was that the runner’s flight was on Tuesday (Aug 8) hence Alex had to resort to using an overnight courier service which cost him USD84.21 (RM386.23) to submit the votes to the runner in LA.
At the end of his post, he strongly encouraged fellow Malaysians, especially those still residing in the country, to go out and vote, highlighting that every vote counts.
“My point is, we have been through so much just to cast our vote so for those who are currently in Malaysia, please do your part too!” he concluded in his post.
Netizens had nothing but praise for Alex’s determination in exercising his rights as a Malaysian citizen, in spite of facing several hurdles along the way.
Alex’s post also caught the attention of former Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng who thanked the young Malaysian for “defending” our nation’s future.
“Please come back and vote to ensure that Malaysia respects diversity and rule of law, remains a multi-racial nation that is democratic and does not target Malaysians based on race or religion,“ Lim said in his post on Facebook.
