Saturday, August 20, 2011

EC Chairman's Errors only 0.0001%

Someone has rightly pointed out that 0.0001% of 12.4 million registered voters equals only 12.4 voters found to have errors. If I happened to be one (I was), then my case would constitute 8%! Let's not argue over the illogical 0.4 of a person which is common when dealing in statistics. But it is certainly unbecoming of the EC Chairman to quote a percentage without careful thought. The mistakes pointed out by various parties usually run into hundreds, if not thousands of each kind. Chances are those could be just the tip of the iceberg, especially where they involved possible manipulation. So what about those yet to be discovered?

Like in auditing, where a random sample is taken to test a system (which is what the opposition and other NGOs have been doing to prove to the EC), even a small number of a mistake found could prove to be a fundamental weakness in the system. For example, those ICs which have '00' as place of birth, have been confirmed to be non-existent. It would be ideal if the system could list out the rest of those with such a code. More important, how could such mistakes happen? Thousands of registered voters over 100 years of age should have been listed in exception reports by the EC and checked to see if they are still alive, instead of having to be pointed out by the opposition. From what we have witnessed so far, EC merely acted on reports of errors by others, which reflected badly on their efficiency and integrity. It is a clear case of management by crisis. As someone has pointed out, we do not need more laws but proper enforcement of existing laws. Can our EC do that please?

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1 comment:

  1. EC refuses automatic registration of voters, because if allowed, the total number of voters will exceed the actual number of citizens above the age of 21. This will happen since non-citizens become instant voters!

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