Latest news with #ballotpapers
Free Malaysia Today
02-06-2025
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Introduce e-voting in MMC for greater credibility, urges senator
Senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran said there have been many complaints over the years of ballot papers reaching the doctors after results are announced. (Facebook pic) PETALING JAYA : Ballot papers for the Malaysian Medical Council elections are not reaching many of the 74,000 doctors in the country, which raises questions on the credibility of the annual election process, says Senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran. Speaking to FMT, the former director of Sungai Bakap Hospital in Penang said there have been many complaints over the years of ballot papers reaching the doctors after results are announced. Lingeshwaran said he, too, had not received ballot papers a few times; on average, only 20% of the ballot papers are returned to MMC, he said. The senator acccused MMC of not improving the election process despite complaints, and urged the new director-general of health, Dr Mahathar Abdul Wahab, to introduce an online election process in view of the large number of doctors involved in the polls. 'The frequent transfers of doctors in the government sector also contributes to their not receiving the ballot papers,' he said. 'Postal voting for such an important government organisation makes the system obsolete and questionable in today's digital world. He urged MMC under the new leadership of Mahathar to introduce e-voting as soon as possible. 'MMC has the database and the means to put it into practice,' he said. MMC is the national medical regulator and is empowered to register and licence medical practitioners and regulate their standards. It is headed by the health director-general and nine appointed doctors from the universities and 17 elected members, 15 of which are from Peninsular Malaysia and one each from Sabah and Sarawak. The council started sending out ballot papers to doctors from May 23. They have until July 25 to return the marked ballots.
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Australian election rocked by scandal after missing ballot papers are found at electoral worker's home
About 2,000 missing ballot papers that went missing on election night have been found in the home of a temeporary Australian Electoral Commission worker. Because the votes had already been counted, the incident did not impact the result in the NSW seat of Barton. 'Ballot papers were securely packaged in the presence of scrutineers with an authorised transport officer collecting two ballot paper transport containers for delivery to a central counting centre to await further processing,' an AEC spokesperson said in a statement. The AEC revealed that a worker collected 1,866 House of Representatives votes in a secure container from a Hurstville polling booth on May 3 but did not deliver it to the central counting facility. 'The staff member responsible erroneously returned one less container than was expected.' AEC officials only noticed the ballots were missing last week. 'The AEC's tracking processes for ballot paper transport containers identified that one of the two transport containers for the Hurstville polling place was not returned to the central counting centre on election night as it should have been,' the spokesperson said. 'This issue relates to a single transport container that remained sealed and intact and has not affected the election,' the AEC said. 'The uniquely coded security seals were not broken, and the AEC's purpose-built ballot paper transport container was intact. 'All ballot papers are accounted for. 'The AEC takes ballot paper handling extremely seriously.' The Barton seat was won by Labor's Ash Ambihaipahar, who secured over 60 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote, beating Liberal candidate Fiona Douskou.
ABC News
13-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
AEC investigates after missing ballot papers found at election worker's home
Almost 2,000 ballot papers went missing on election night and were later recovered from the Sydney home of a temporary Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) worker, the ABC can reveal. While the AEC said the incident did not affect the result in the seat of Barton because the votes had already been counted, it has not explained how the ballots ended up at the worker's home and has launched an investigation. Live results: Find out what's happening in your seat as counting continues The AEC confirmed the worker collected a secure container holding 1,866 House of Representatives votes from a polling booth in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville after polls closed on May 3, but failed to deliver it to the commission's central counting centre. "Ballot papers were securely packaged in the presence of scrutineers with an authorised transport officer collecting two ballot paper transport containers for delivery to a central counting centre to await further processing," an AEC spokesperson said in a statement. "The staff member responsible erroneously returned one less container than was expected." Officials at the AEC only noticed the container was missing when they began a routine recount of votes in the electorate last week. "The AEC's tracking processes for ballot paper transport containers identified that one of the two transport containers for the Hurstville polling place was not returned to the central counting centre on election night as it should have been," the spokesperson said. The AEC recovered the container early last week. Want even more? Here's where you can find all our 2025 federal election coverage Catch the latest interviews and in-depth coverage on ABC iview and ABC Listen "This issue relates to a single transport container that remained sealed and intact and has not affected the election," the AEC said. "The uniquely coded security seals were not broken, and the AEC's purpose-built ballot paper transport container was intact. "All ballot papers are accounted for. "The AEC takes ballot paper handling extremely seriously." Labor's Ash Ambihaipahar won the seat, beating Liberal Fiona Douskou with more than 60 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote. The AEC was not able to provide details about where in the worker's home the container was found. "It was obtained from the individual's home where it was collected by permanent AEC staff," the spokesperson said. "The only specific detail I have regarding the collection is that it was obtained during a conversation outside the staff member's house, following identification of the custody of the container." No system is 100 per cent secure, but the Signal app can be used to protect your identity by using end-to-end encryption. Please read the terms and conditions of the app to work out if it is the best method of communication for you. The commission has launched an investigation into the matter but declined to say whether it had referred the incident to law enforcement agencies. University of Sydney electoral law expert Anne Twomey described the incident as a "serious matter". "Although it had no effect upon the outcome of the election in this case, it could have resulted in the election being held void in that seat if the ballots had been destroyed," Professor Twomey said. "While concerning, this case does remind us that there are many layers of protection built into the electoral system to ensure it is secure. "The system ensured there was accountability, although it seems likely there was some kind of failure to identify immediately that the container had not been delivered to the counting centre." In 2013, the AEC was forced to re-run Western Australia's senate election after 1,370 ballots went missing in what a parliamentary inquiry described as the "greatest failure in the history of the Australian Electoral Commission". Professor Twomey said the latest incident was likely to prompt a fresh inquiry into the commission's transportation of ballot papers. "The AEC will no doubt investigate this matter thoroughly and learn from the failure," she said.
