The existing electoral roll contains a record for an eligible voter who is a century-and-half old, Election Commission chairman Azhar Azizan @ Harun disclosed today.
The world's oldest person on record is France's Jeanne Calment, who lived to the age of 122.
Azhar said this was discovered as part of his agency's and its Electoral Reform Committee’s study of the current voting system, during which they found 73,000 voters aged over 90.
Azhar also said he did not know for certain how many of these elder voters were still alive.
“But there are 73,000 people who are above 90 in the electoral roll, with the oldest being 150 years old... If you think logically, you can’t be alive when you are 150. Even the PM is 93, but this is 150.
“We have learnt that 11,000 from the 73,000 actually voted, so they are still alive. So balance is 62,000 we will make sure that this is cleaned up,” he told the press when met at the Roundtable on Electoral Reform: The Way Forward for Free and Fair Elections in Parliament, here, today.
Azhar said the electoral roll clean-up is an ongoing process, and the roll will updated every three months.
“The registration of new voters is an ongoing process people die every day and cleaning the electoral role of dead people is also a daily affair.
“As long as we put in a system that is clear and could guarantee clean electoral system, then the process would just go along as it should,” he said.
When asked on the concern over hundreds of voters sharing common address, Azhar said various addresses have been identified and the commission officers have gone down to the ground to scout the addresses.
“Some of the addressed are occupied, but we found a few others that are vacant, so we will be taking action,” he said, citing houses in villages that does not have home addresses to be sharing a common address.
“There are cases that are genuine, and there are those that are not. We will find out why it happened,” he said.
Azhar added the commission is calling up the voters of the addresses to identify where they are located in order to clean them up from the electoral roll if they are not found.
Original article from https://www.malaymail.com/s/1698648/ec-chief-oldest-voter-on-record-in-150-years-old?fbclid=IwAR0va04mNHgGMZuFTI_lpxngofUb6_YHkOsEX_rMknO74qfos2gv62a7sXs
