Kota Kinabalu: Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) and Parti solidarity Tanahairku (Star) became the latest Gabungan Rakyat Sabah components to question the sudden hike in new Sabah voters to 574,120, mostly within a two-year period.
PBS said it is exploring legal avenues on the matter. Its Information Chief Datuk Joniston Bangkuai said the party’s repeated concern over the likelihood of illegitimate voters emerging due to automatic registration now appears justified.
He said the shocking spike of more than half a million new voters since the last State election warrants a thorough review of the rolls by the Election Commission.
He suggested the party’s divisions also thoroughly scrutinise the electoral rolls to ascertain who these new voters are.
“The party’s divisions need to proactively scrutinise the electoral rolls for names that could be alien to them,” he said in a statement, Wednesday.
“Compile and report these findings to the party headquarters so we have a basis to pursue the next course of action,” he said.
It was reported that a study of the Election Commission (EC) statistics revealed an increase of 574,120 new voters compared to the previous election four years ago, when 1,064,686 people were eligible. Our report on Oct 17
The report also revealed that the increase were not due to Undi18 but happened between 2018 and 2020.
PBS President Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili had previously said that while the party supports the automatic registration of citizens aged 18 years and above, it should not be extended to Sabah until after the existing voter list is vetted and verified thoroughly.
This is because there have been reports and complaints of suspicious voters in previous elections.
Joniston said PBS had also made repeated requests for appointments with the EC to obtain assurance that the Sabah electoral records are clean and devoid of questionable voters if it persists on continuing the automatic registration for voters in Sabah.
The requests, however, were not entertained until today.
Star said it is shocked to learn of an unusual spike in the number of voters in Keningau.
Star President Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said the voter count increase in the Keningau parliamentary constituency was over 70 per cent. “This is very unusual and suspicious,” he said.
“Sabahans are shocked by this revelation. They demand answers from the authorities and their immediate action,” he said.
He said the number of voters in Keningau parliamentary was 51,777 in 2018 but jumped to 87,371 in 2022, making it a 70.7 per cent increase.
Ironically, he said, he was informed the number of Undi18 voters in Keningau parliamentary was less than 8,000.
“There is no way we can have an increase of over 30,000 in less than five years. Something is wrong,” he said.
Earlier, Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) President Datuk Seri Yong Teck Lee said the surge could be due to a high number of dubious voters linked to the Project IC scandal.
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