Electoral Roll Gazetted 2008 Feb 5 - An Overview

How many parliamentary seats, DUNs, DMs, voting stations, localities, and voters were there in the electoral roll gazetted on 2008 Feb 5, used in GE12?

We should round up basic statistics about the latest gazetted voters list, before investigating the curious phenomena, such as, 120-year-old voters, states with 80%-90% voters without house number, big army camps, IC numbers that do not match gender info, etc.

Basic facts - the electoral roll gazetted on 2008 Feb 5 contains information on:

• 10,922,139 registered voters.
  
• 16 states (Negeri) - including 3 federal territories.
  
• 222 parliamentary seats


• 576 state assembly seats or DUNs.
  
• We will list all parliamentary and DUN seats in another blog entry.
• Note that 13 parliamentary seats of federal territories do not have DUN seats - poor folks.
• Note also that 5 pairs of DUNs use the same names, listed in the table below.
  Table A: 5 pairs of DUNs with the same names

  Kod2 (Parliament/DUN)	Negeri	NamaParlimen	NamaDUN
  0482301	Pulau Pinang	Bukit Bendera	Air Putih
  0403201	Terengganu	Kemaman	Air Putih
  1002101	Selangor	Pandan	Chempaka
  0200601	Kelantan	Pengkalan Chepa	Chempaka
  1512601	Johor	Simpang Renggam	Machap
  1350801	Melaka	Alor Gajah	Machap
  1533001	Johor	Sembrong	Paloh
  0324401	Kelantan	Gua Musang	Paloh
  0503001	Pulau Pinang	Jelutong	Sungai Pinang
  1094401	Selangor	Kapar	Sungai Pinang



• 7,231 voting districts or Daerah Mengundi (with one error and 338 same-name DMs).
  


• SPR probably intended to have only 7,230 DMs, except for one small mistake.

• There was a single-girl-district-code, on an air field, in 0745011024. This DM shares the same parliament/DUN/DM name (Perak/Lumut/Sitiawan/Astaka) with 074/50/02, but has its own code of 074/50/11 and has only one voter and a single-voter locality (locality name: TMN LAPANGAN TERBANG. locality code: 024). We will cover this in the next blog entry "The Single Girl District".


• There were 338 DMs sharing the same name (but are actually distinct DMs with different codes). So there are only 6,733 unique names for DMs. There is probably nothing sinister here, because many places sharing similar common names. For example, "Simpang Tiga" represents 9 different DMs, and "Bandar" was used 7 times. The list is too long so we will post these common DM names in a later blog entry "338 Duplicate Names for Voting Districts (DMs)." The single-girl-district of Perak/Lumut/Sitiawan/Astaka is one of the cases counted here.
  


• 6,900 voting centers or TM (Tempat Mengundi) by one count.
  
• TM is normally a school or a town hall you go to to vote in.
  
• One TM can be used by one to five DMs.
  
• We have to be a little careful with this counting of voting centers.
  
• There are 70 TMs called "POS" used across the country, under different DUNs.
  
• There are only 6,676 unique names for voting centers because many different TMs across the country coincidentally use the same name, such as "POS" and "SEKOLAH KEBANGSAAN BANDAR" which appears 7 times or "SEKOLAH JENIS KEBANGSAAN (C) CHUNG HWA" which appears 6 times.
  
• These are different voting centers of the same name, and each voting center can in turn be shared by several DMs.
  Table B: These 4 distinct TMs have the same name, and are shared by 7 DMs

  Kod	Negeri	NamaParlimen	NamaDUN	NamaDM	TM
  112/53/03	Selangor	Kuala Langat	Morib	Bandar	Sekolah Kebangsaan Bandar
  155/35/09	Johor	Tenggara	Pasir Raja	Jalan Besar	Sekolah Kebangsaan Bandar
  029/33/01	Kelantan	Machang	Pulai Chondong	Kampung Bandar	Sekolah Kebangsaan Bandar
  147/17/17	Johor	Parit Sulong	Semerah	Shahbandar	Sekolah Kebangsaan Bandar



• 94,801 localities, according to Kodlokaliti, an SPR data field.
  
• However, there are only 81,340 locality names, because many distinct localities share the same name. They include Pemilih Tak Hadir or locality code 801 (appears 722 times), Polis (313), Berek Polis (169), Main Road (81), Kg Baru (76), Police Compound (75), Kg Tengah (60), Jln Besar (59), Jalan Besar (58), Kawasan Polis (51), Jalan Pasar (46), Rumah Murah (39), Jalan Sekolah (38), Kg Masjid (35), Labourers Lines (34), Kwsn Polis (34), and Barek Polis (33).
• Note the inconsistent usage of "Main Road" and "Jalan Besar", or "Jln" and "Jalan", "Kawasan" and "Kwsn", "Barek" and "Berek".


• NoRumah and blank information: Under each Lokaliti or locality, SPR data contains a field called NoRumah, or house number. The problem is in some states, such as Kelantan, 90% of voters do not have NoRumah information. We'll explore this topic in a later blog entry.
  


• Each NoRumah can contain several voters. The problem is that even where NoRumah is non-blank, there can be hundreds of voters sharing the same NoRumah. We will also explore this topic in another blog entry later.


• In total, there were 10,922,139 registered voters in this electoral roll gazetted on 2008 Feb 5.


• Note that while data for most parliamentary constituencies were updated to 2007q4 (2007 Dec 31), some consituency updates were disputed. So for constituencies such as P049 (Tanjong, PP), the voter data used was apparently only up to 2007q3 (2007 Sep 30), with some adjustments made for cross-constituency voter movements.

How do these locality divisions relate to one another?

The chart below outlines the hierarchical relation of these geographical/location divisions used by the SPR. Note that under DM, there are 2 possible methods of division.

Table C: Geographical Data Structure

SPR's Locality Organization Structure
Parliamentary seat
	DUN: State assembly seat
		Daerah Mengundi or DM (Several DMs can share the same TM or Tempat Mengundi)
			Lokaliti: Locality, street, army camp, police quarters
				NoRumah: House number, many blanks
			TM or Tempat Mengundi (normally a school, or town hall)
				Saluran: Voting streams (normally a classroom in a school)

(a) For voting purpose, one or several DM (Daerah Mengundi) is associated with a TM (Tempat Mengundi, often a school), which is in turn divided into Saluran (voting stream, often a classroom in the school).

Old folks' problem: Since voters within a DM are arranged by IC numbers, lower-number hence older voters tend to list in front, and are assigned to the first Salurans, which are often the lower-floor classrooms. This physically helps the older voters. However, this system apparently breaks down when 2 DMs are assigned to the same TM, where the second DM may start at a saluran/classroom on the second or third floor of the same TM/school. In other words, where more than one DMs share the same TM, older voters from the second DM are likely to be assigned to the higher-floor saluran/classrooms.

(b) For SPR internal data base purpose, each DM is further divided into "lokaliti" (a locality is a street, an army camp, a police quarters, etc). Under each lokaliti, the next level of details is NoRumah, or house numbers. But a locality may not be a street, but a community or a cluster of minor streets.