At MARUAH, we believe in everyone’s right to a free and fair election.
In July 2020, we published a series of six posts in as part of a ‘GE2020 series’.
The messaging contained within is still as relevant as ever, and serve as a timely reminder that everyone has a right to a free and fair election.
We will be republishing these posts and our messages over the next few days leading up to Polling Day.
Thank you.
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Posted by jamestan2019
In a 2007 paper published by Dr. Lisa Handley, “Challenging the Norms and Standards of Election Administration: Boundary Delimitation”, she explained how certain fundamental principles should be considered when setting international election standards to guide the delimitation process.
Dr. Handley concluded that “there is no single best model for delimiting constituency boundaries. The wide variety of delimitation practices, many of them quite successful, attest to this. However, it is important to establish standards to which the delimitation process might aspire, if current practices do not already meet them. These standards will need to be flexible to be relevant to both mature and transitional democracies, but underlying all of them should be the fundamental principles of impartiality, equality, representativeness, nondiscrimination, and transparency.
Meeting standards that include an impartial boundary authority (guided by principles like equal voting strength, representativeness, and non-discrimination) as well as a process that is as transparent as possible offers credibility and legitimacy to a process that can have decided political consequences. The table below provides a summary of the principles that should guide the delimitation process and some examples of best practices that meet these standards.“
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Posted by jamestan2019
Boundary delimitation usually refers to the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. However, it can also be used to denote the process of drawing voting areas (also called polling areas, districts or election precincts) for the purposes of assigning voters to polling places. The periodic delimitation of electoral boundaries is necessary in any representative system where single-member districts or uniformly small multi-member districts are used. If electoral boundaries are not periodically adjusted, population inequities develop across districts.
Countries have adopted various methods for delimiting districts. Countries that delimit districts must establish a formal structure and a set of rules for carrying out the delimitation process. In some, the choice of methods is simply a matter of historical tradition, but the delimitation can also be based on a variety of factors that may include the geographic size of the country, its physical features, or its financial resources. Different sets of districts can produce different election outcomes, and even if the underlying vote patterns remain constant, the choice of delimitation practices is important.
Source: ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
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Posted by jamestan2019
The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
21. Although the Covenant does not impose any particular electoral system, any system operating in a State party must be compatible with the rights protected by article 25 and must guarantee and give effect to the free expression of the will of the electors. The principle of one person, one vote must apply, and within the framework of each State’s electoral system, the vote of one elector should be equal to the vote of another. The drawing of electoral boundaries and the method of allocating votes should not distort the distribution of voters or discriminate against any group and should not exclude or restrict unreasonably the right of citizens to choose their representatives freely.
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Posted by jamestan2019
Overseas Singaporeans were allowed to vote by post for the first time in the 2023 Presidential Election. Unfortunately, over 40% of postal ballots were disallowed, and even among the ballot papers that were accepted, 4% of those were rejected due to irregularities in the marking of the ballot paper.
The government has not announced any changes to the postal balloting procedure since the 2023 election, and its reply to a PQ raised by NCMP Hazel Poa suggests that they will not make any major changes to the procedure before the parliamentary elections this year.
While ELD released detailed instructions and an instructional video for postal voters in 2023, the process is a multi-step process, and as evidenced by the high rejection rate of postal ballots, it is not as simple as voting in a polling station in Singapore.
Under the law, postal ballots must be received by ELD within 10 days after polling day. Registered overseas voters can download their postal ballots from ELD’s website the day after nomination day and the ballots must be mailed out before polling day. That means that registered overseas voters have only eight (8) days to download their postal ballots, decide who to vote for, and post their ballots. In addition, the ballot must be received by ELD in Singapore within ten (10) days after polling day. Given the vagaries of weather, postal strikes and just general deterioration in postal services around the world, postal voters should post their ballots as early as possible to make sure that their votes are counted.
Unfortunately, just dropping off the ballot at the nearest post box is not enough. Voters must ensure that their return envelopes have a legible postmark, dated at least one day before polling day. This leads to the biggest problem that postal voters face:
ELD provides business return reply envelopes for voters, but many countries do not routinely postmark business reply envelopes, so many voters had their ballots rejected in 2023 because their return envelopes were not postmarked at all. ELD is aware of this issue and does recommend that postal voters apply stamps to the return envelopes so that there will be a postmark to provide evidence of the date of posting.
Voters must also take into account that some postal services do not pick up mail from all post boxes every day. And even if the mail is picked up, it may not be postmarked until it is processed at a sorting facility several days later. This means that even if the return envelope is dropped in a post box on time, it may not be postmarked until after the deadline, resulting in the ballot being disallowed.
As mentioned earlier, overseas voters should post their ballots as early as possible to prevent their ballots from being rejected. Those who want to be extra kiasu may even go to a post office personally to ask for their return envelopes to be manually postmarked by counter staff.
I do not advise using an express mail or courier service to return the postal ballot papers. If the official ELD return envelope is enclosed inside an envelope provided by the courier company, there will not be any postmarks on the official return envelope itself. Those ballots would then be rejected because elections officials are only allowed to look at postmarks on the official return envelope.
As mentioned above, ELD gives very detailed instructions on how to print, mark and post postal ballots. Even seemingly minor deviations from the instructions may cause ballots to be rejected. For example,
The rules may seem to be nitpicky but they are important because elections officials have to be sure that ballots received are from the correct person, and have not been tampered with. Apart from written instructions, ELD also provides an instructional video to guide the voter through the process, so voters should follow the instructions to make sure their vote is counted.
The mechanics of postal balloting are moot if the overseas Singaporean is not registered as an overseas voter. Overseas voters must re-register as an overseas voter every time that the Electoral Registers are revised, and since the Registers were revised today, that means that all overseas Singaporeans must register as overseas voters if they want to vote, even if they were registered previously. This can be done online on ELD’s website up to three days after the writ of election is issued. During registration, overseas voters can register to vote at overseas polling stations, or to vote by post. In either case, if the voter is physically present in Singapore on polling day, he or she can still vote in person at a local polling station.
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Posted by stngiam
Maruah has submitted the following feedback to Elections Department of Singapore (“ELD”) in view of the General Election due by next year, and ELD’s announcement that it had made some changes to electoral procedures as a result of experience gained in the 2023 Presidential Election:
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To: Elections Department, Prime Minister’s Office
Maruah is gratified that you are responding to public feedback and providing more space on ballot papers for voters to indicate their choice. During last year’s Presidential Election, ELD also introduced two new methods of voting – postal ballots and special polling stations at nursing homes. More voters were able to have their voices heard thanks to these new procedures, but there is room for improvement in these procedures.
In the case of postal balloting, over 40% of postal ballots received were rejected, mostly due to illegible or missing postmarks, or late delivery. These were not the fault of the voters, and I urge ELD to adopt more reliable ways of validating the dates of dispatch instead of relying solely on the vagaries of foreign postal systems. The forms and instructions for voting should also be improved to reduce the chance of inadvertent errors such as voters signing their forms at the wrong place or posting multiple ballots in the same envelope.
In the case of nursing homes, residents were pre-selected for participation based on the homes’ assessments of their ability to vote. Unfortunately, from my own observations as a polling agent, a large proportion of the selected residents did not appear to have the mental capacity to vote or to clearly indicate their choice. This was alluded to by Minister Chan Chun Sing in a written reply to a Parliamentary Question on 4 October 2023, where he said “election officials did face challenges including managing voters who may lack the mental capacity to vote”. To prevent any disputes in future over the validity of votes at nursing homes, ELD should tighten and standardise the criteria used to assess the mental capacity of residents before they vote. ELD should also evaluate the usefulness of mobile polling stations at nursing homes.
Maruah would like to thank ELD, and the thousands of elections officials and public servants involved in elections, for their continual efforts to improve the voting experience and making it easier for Singaporeans to exercise their right and duty of voting.
MARUAH Singapore
June 2024
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Posted by jamestan2019
Asian Electoral Stakeholders Forum 5 was hosted online this year on 20-21 October 2021. There were four panel discussions on (1) addressing electoral challenges and democratic backsliding in Asia, (2) success stories of holding elections during COVID-19, (3) promoting electoral reforms through cooperation between EMBs and CSOs, and (4) improving electoral integrity using technology and open data.
The memorandum – The Way Forward for Elections Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic (click to view), was adopted by consensus at the end of the forum. It is hoped that this memo can guide election stakeholders, such as election management bodies, civil society organisations and observer groups, to strive to improve electoral processes in their respective countries in pursuit of genuine democracy.
The panel speakers’ presentation slides can be found in this Google Drive folder.
Recordings of the forum can be found on ANFREL’s Facebook page (Day 1 | Day 2).
Thank you.
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Posted by jamestan2019
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar & Hong Kong
June 2021
Introduction
ANFREL started publishing the monthly brief on the countries under a restrictive environment in April 2021 to provide an insight into the human rights and democracy situation in these countries. As usual, they will cover issues related to elections and civil and political rights in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar and Hong Kong.
To read the full brief, please click here.
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Posted by jamestan2019
For a copy of the statement in PDF format, please click here.
February 11, 2021
MARUAH unequivocally condemns the military takeover of Myanmar on February 1, 2021.
The Tatmadaw (military) overthrew the elected government of Myanmar, detained government leaders, civil service officers, activists and human rights rights defenders, imposed a year-long Emergency on the country and has blocked intermittently access to Internet. To date the military has given no official data on the state of well-being of the elected leaders of the Myanmar government, their locations, the number of people arrested and information on who have been arrested.
The Tatmadaw acted deliberately and intentionally. This is a coup d’état. The fragile democracy in Myanmar is in tatters. Military personnel have become the new political leaders of the country. The military supporters and members of the Union Solidarity and Development Party and Buddhist nationalists jointly presented themselves as custodians of Buddhism in the 2020 General Elections, saying that the National League Democracy political party as being anti-Buddhism. Currently this joint force is patrolling the streets alongside uniformed soldiers and police to arrest, threaten and beat-up thousands of protesters in the streets. People in Myanmar are saying clearly that they do not wish to be under military rule as they had experienced it over 50 years (1962-2011). The Tatmadaw in the past had suppressed Buddhism, resulting in the 2007 Saffron Revolution, but now has an ally in the Buddhist Nationalists. Reports are coming in on protesters being arrested, beaten, tear-gassed and shot at across Myanmar, in Naypyidaw, Bago, Magway and Mandalay. MARUAH finds this new kinship between Buddhist nationalists and the military disconcerting as its puts into jeopardy the lives, safety and well-being of people of different religious beliefs amongst the 135 ethnic groups as well as the Rohingyas.
MARUAH also recalls the people’s experiences when the country was under successive military regimes. They were times of long imprisonments, solitary confinements, tortures, extreme poverty, starvation, lack of medical attention, low development, fear and distrust. In recent years we saw the persecution of the Rohingyas, many of whom fled the country. The track record of the past and current governments has been to uphold Myanmar’s sovereignty in the face regional and international interventions on human rights violations and to dismiss the UN reports as being biased and hypocritical. Universally, we presided over an impasse as a million refugees continued
to live in poor conditions and the incessant armed conflicts between the Tatmadaw and rebel forces, resulting in deaths, injuries, rapes and destructions of homes. MARUAH emphasises this blatant disregard shown by the Myanmar governments to abide by the Responsibility to Protect principles. MARUAH also deplores the indifference given to protecting people against Covid-19 in this planned coup.
MARUAH has been in solidarity with many civil society actors in expressing their deep concerns over this 10-day-old takeover. But we make this statement, appealing for a deeper cognizance of the character of the people in Myanmar and for actions to protect them. They are, by thousands, in the streets picking up the cudgels to fight for their democracy and to be governed by an elected government, not a military force that usurped the power. They are reaching out to the global community, risking their safety, to share detailed accounts on what is going on in the country.
We appreciate deeply the prompt response from our own government, Singapore, as well as statements from Association of Southeast Nations’ (ASEAN) leaders and the United Nations. We are particularly pleased that United States of America and New Zealand have declared that they will not recognise the new government of Myanmar. We have also noted reports emerging from both state-level and private sector investments and business partnerships in Myanmar. Based on the series of crimes against humanity over 50 years, the lack of culpability by the government of Myanmar, and the resilience of the people in Myanmar in fighting for their freedom and rights, MARUAH urges strongly that we cannot become witnesses to a blood bath in Myanmar. MARUAH asks for a deeper commitment, beyond the suggested meetings to seek negotiation and reconciliation with the Tatmadaw. We ask for a clear course of steps that underscore the unacceptability of this coup, the non-recognition of the Tatmadaw as the government and that economic partnerships be reviewed. To prevent an escalation into a civil war and to protect the people, we humbly make a call for governments, ASEAN and the UN, to:
Issued by MARUAH Singapore.
About MARUAH Singapore
We are a Singapore human rights NGO.
MARUAH means Dignity in Malay, Singapore’s national language. Human rights are all about maintaining, restoring and reclaiming one’s dignity at the individual, regional and international level.
We seek to:
MARUAH is also the Singapore focal point for the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism. The Working Group has national representatives from all of the founding Member States of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
The Working Group is an NGO officially recognised in the ASEAN Charter as a stakeholder in ASEAN.
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Posted by jamestan2019
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Posted by jamestan2019
MARUAH Singapore 
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