Dr Wong Chin Huat shares his knowledge and expertise on EC's next constituency redelineation exercise

Excerpt from The Nut Graph:

'Redelineation was last completed in the Peninsula, Sabah and Labuan in 2003 and in Sarawak in 2005. So the whole of Malaysia is now eligible for another exercise, after a mandatory interval of at least eight years.

The delineation process consists of two parts: apportionment and districting. Apportionment refers to the allocation of constituencies by an administrative unit, while districting means deciding how the boundaries should be drawn to create those constituencies within the administrative unit. From apportionment arises the problem of malapportionment, and from districting, gerrymandering.'

More:
Uncommon sense with Wong Chin Huat: Constituency redelineation and citizen vigilance
http://www.thenutgraph.com/uncommon-sense-with-wong-chin-huat-constituency-redelineation-and-citizen-vigilance/

Other points which I found educational:

A seat increase (amendment to Article 46) would need two-thirds approval in the Dewan Rakyat, while constituency redelineation requires only a simply majority.

'In the United States, the House of Representatives today has 435 members as it did in 1911, even though the US population has tripled over the century.
Malaysia today has one parliamentarian for every 63,167 voters. By our standards, India’s Parliament should be 11,000-strong, but its size is capped at 552 members. '
'Without a seat increase, redelineation will have to be purely an adjustment of boundaries to correct excessive malapportionment and gerrymandering. On the other hand, a seat increase allows the EC to easily create winnable seats for the BN. Over time, Umno has contested more and more seats, from 40.26% of Parliament’s total in 1974 to 46.89% in 1986, and to 47.92% in 1995 and 53.42% in 2004.'

'It is, therefore, suicidal for the PR to support an amendment to Article 46 to increase the number of seats. The Article should, indeed, be amended, but instead of increasing the total seats, seats should be taken from over-represented states like Pahang, Perak and Johor and given to under-represented states and territories like Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.'

'The third type of gerrymandering is the partitioning of neighbourhoods, such as housing estates and villages, leaving one half to one constituency and the other half to another. In addition to that is the “teleporting” of voters, where some voters are shifted to neighbouring constituencies on the electoral roll, even though their families who registered under the same address stay put.

One such example involves a Mr Ong who lives in 278-D, Kampung Abdullah, in Segamat. Before the 2003 redelineation, Mr Ong and his entire family were voters in Segamat (then code-numbered P125). After the redelineation, Mr Ong found himself staying put in Segamat (now P140) while his wife and siblings were all transferred to the newly created Sekijang (P141). Did the EC draw the constituency boundary in such a  way that it cuts through the house, and even Mr and Mrs Ong’s bed, such that you have “one bed, two constituencies”?'

Eg. of an interstate malapportionment
'An average parliamentary constituency in Selangor had 93,129 voters, while that of Johor had only 61,743, less than even two-thirds of Selangor. Such a disparity is called.'

Eg. of an intrastate malapportionment
'...within Selangor, the largest constituency – Kapar – now has 127,012 voters, while the smallest – Sabak Bernam – has only 37,318, less than a third of the former.'

'Dr Wong Chin Huat is a Fellow of the Penang Institute, a Penang government think tank. He is passionate about electoral reform and is a pro bono consultant for the civil society group, ENGAGE, on the upcoming redelineation exercise.'

I think we should be grateful to Dr Wong, for all his efforts to ensure fairness in the next redelineation exercise. We should do our part, where necessary, by taking part in the process.

A flowchart by Dr Wong in Facebook, to help us in understanding the process:

Link