SPR Becoming Less Transparent

SPR has stopped publishing supplementary electoral roll (quarterly changes) for 2008Q2 in PDF format on its Web site. This will block NGOs from checking large army and police movements, and SPR effectiveness in deleting dead voters

Earlier in 2007Q4 and 2008Q1, SPR had published the supplementary electoral rolls (the quarterly changes of voter addition, deletion, etc) in PDF formats. These PDF files would be put online at http://www.spr.gov.my/index/pamer_rang.htm a few weeks after the end of the quarters.

For whatever reason, however, they are no longer published online when the time comes, such as now. Now, you can only check voter changes one by one at http://daftarj.spr.gov.my/rang/rang.aspx or at one of the post offices listed here: http://www.spr.gov.my/index/pameran.html, manually using hard copies.

Both of these approaches are laborious and will not yield overall picture of changes.

This is an unfortunate change towards non-transparency, because NGOs and Opposition parties can no longer do these:

• Tally and check the overall deletion of dead voters during the quarter,
• Check for large army and police movements within the quarter,
• Append quarterly changes to the last gazetted roll to project a "pro-forma" latest roll

Note: SPR Web site had earlier de-linked the Web page that lists post offices where you can manually verify voter changes. But the link is back on now. It's at http://www.spr.gov.my/index/pameran.html.

Background:

• What happens to the electoral roll every quarter?
• Large Army and Police "Movements" Just Before GE2008
• Dead Voters Society Membership Reduced
• Army/Police Movements - Where To and From