Election administration challenges in Tenang: how to deal with severe flood?(updated)

The BN campaign director announced the deployment of transport help to voters-shouldn't this be the EC's job?

Waist height flood water has effectively stopped most voters to come out to vote-a consideration to stop the poll.

There are many aspects of election administration to look into when it come to severe floods: when should the election be put off on account that substantial proportion of voters are prevented to cast their vote? The EC should set the standard ahead so that there would not be any accusation of bias. 2. Should the polling hours be extended. According to the EC (reported) the extension will run foul of laws-but this had happened in previous general elections in Selangor before. 3. Should voters be stopped from bringing in their own umbrella to the polling center/school? Reportedly this is stopped on excuse that the voters’ won umbrella can be turned into a weapon. Then do the EC provide enough umbrella to all the voters? To be noted: the polling center’s start from the gate of a school-which can be 20-30m from the polling station/classroom.

Update: since provision of government transport can be a decisive factor in a flood-hit election the party agents should be monitoring the handling of these precious public resources as much as they watch over the polling 7 counting process. This is a point which Opposition parties need to take up for future elections. If the provision of transport prove to be so skewed in favour that it affect the election results significantly then the election results will lose credibility. It would then mean that the election was not decided by the voters choice-but by the choice of the EC on where to send the transport to! In a fair election it is the voters who choose who win-not the transport provider!

The most controversial: how do the EC ensure that the provision of transport to various areas is done equitably? Any bias in such provision would introduce bias and discredit the election result. There has been no pronouncement by the EC-but the deployment of the police/military/Rela etc was reportedly made by the DPM Muhyiddin, who also happen to be the campaign director of the Tenang by-election! Look like he has more say to deploy the transport to the voters’ areas than anyone else. Since he is campaigning for 1 side would he not take advantage to send all the government transport to his supporters only? The press reported Muhyiddin claiming that the EC has agreed to deploy the transport help to fetch the voters-but where is the EC in this whole arrangement? Look like there is no pretense to even make the arrangement look fair to all sides!

No wonder the Opposition are crying foul in the transport deployment. A blogger admit that the campaign-as far as it can still influence voters, has turned into a competition of providing transports and mobilising the voters-which should not be what elections are all about.

Sensing that the lower voter turn out will render his 5000 majority boast unrealistic the UMNO no 2 who lead the campaign for BN has use the rain as an excuse not to achieve the target.

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