I just picked this up from Malaysiakini. Malaysiakini seems to be suffering from lagging and returning a lot of error requests. You may or may not get the page but keep trying.
EC decides against indelible ink
Mar 4, 08 4:55pmThe Election Commission has cancelled the use of indelible ink for this general election, citing public order and security issues.
The stunning announcement was made at a press conference in Putrajaya this afternoon – four days before polling.
The announcement was made by EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman. Also present at the press conference were Attorney General Abdul Gani Patail dan Inspector General of Police Musa Hassan.
BTW, we can access Malaysiakini free of charge from today until 10th March, 2008. So do read the news and compare it with our mainstream media.
Anyway, here’s the news from Bernama.
March 04, 2008 17:10 PM
EC Scraps Indelible Ink Plan
PUTRAJAYA, March 4 (Bernama) — The Election Commission Tuesday cancelled plan to use indelible ink in the upcoming general election.
— BERNAMA
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news.php?id=318292
Further reading : Fatwa Council gives thumbs up to indelible ink dd August 8, 2007. There is a related post that says even PAS laffs at the EC claims that it is Un-Islamic back then. So, what’s their excuse this time?
The latest from The Star makes me pissed.
He said provisions to the law needed if the ink was to be used still could not affect the constitutional right of a voter to cast his vote, even a person whose fingernail had been marked with indelible ink or one who refuses to have his or her fingernail marked this way.
“From a practical point of view, the issuance of a ballot paper to such a voter would render the EC’s proposal meaningless and will not bring about a positive result, whilst having the potential to create misunderstanding as well as altercations and arguments at polling stations,” he said.
The Federal Constitution gives you the right to vote, and a black mark on your fingernail should not bar you from exercising this right, he said.
I seriously do not get WTH he is crapping about. Do you? And if you read this : How Secure is the daftarj.spr.gov.my Website?, then, all the more you lost confidence.
But one thing is for sure – the privacy of registered voters are at risk. This particular website doesn’t require authentication to check voting status. You can check your status as many times as you want, consecutively. This means that an attacker can write a script that generate random IC numbers. This is extremely trivial since the format of our IC number is birthdate-statecode-fourdigitcode. A five-line Ruby, Perl or Python script will achieve this – and an attacker can let his script run for days, if not months. And if he’s lucky, he’ll get you full name, your permanent address, your polling center, and so on. What he’s gonna with the data is up to imagination.
I bet they already paid for the ink….
what a waste, spend 3 million for the ink, and now say wanna cancel..siao..
There goes the ink down the drain. And some people are going to make a lot of money out of it.
hcfoo – Ya, I am pissed because I thought that’s the one security we have that there won’t be 128 years old voters there. And after all the big hoo-haa, now they say security reason pulak. WTF.
charleskey – Good lah, when your generation are old enough to vote, we will really see the change.
one word – FARK!!!!!!
sooi2 – Yeah, the more I dig, the more fark it looks like. And when I see that face! I wanna burst a vein.
WTF?
Didn’t they already paid for the ink that came all the way from India?
See?
yet another case of mismanagement of public funds
there goes our tax money
You can see how desperate this goverment/UMNO/BN they knew that the rakyat want a change ,but what they doing is they forcing the rakyat to vote them. Hey the people of this land Malaysia biar kan mereka meranchang, tetapi Allah akan menentukan kali ini mereka akan kalah terok.(blow owner dah censor part of the comment)
This ppl really know how to waste our money. One minute say very good and then after a night, they say useless. So, what are they going to do with the ink now? Time to change!!! I want to see changes.
choonie – Leaves an indelible mark in everyone’s memory and by the next election in five years time, people like Hobart, Charleskey and other youths know what kind of deal we get. That para of words uttered by the EC chairman is the greatest piece of bullshits I have ever read.
Muslim – I agree with your comments but sorry I cannot publish them all. š
Hobart – RM2 million flushed down the drain just to fool us rakyat. It was just a RM2million toy to pacify us temporarily and now, last minute, they pull a quick one. I read PKR and PAS sites and they said let’s get on with the election and BERSIH will deal with it later.
I’m feeling very disappointed. Why? Because I can’t make sense of the EC chairman’s statement to abolish the ink. Why why why???
I got my foot back to here via Malaysiakini website XD
Aigh… Memboros is their attitude.
RM2.4million to import the ink (how much commission from there already?), the mayb RM1 to announce the abolishment. Shame shame…
I hope they haven’t paid for the ink. If not, he better drink the lot.
If its paid for(tax payer’s money), they will say they will be used for the next election. But when they next election comes, they will say that they dried up, then buy again.
Typical Malaysian corruption tactic. BN boleh!!!! Niamah!!!
More reason for us to shove the inks down Abdul Rashit arse. Wait, to vote BN out.
Yes Terence. He should drink all of it! Wonderful suggestion. Haha š
I think if we are responsible Malaysians, we should print out as many worthy posts highlighting all these dirty tactics and place them on car windscreens or letter boxes whatever. We need to do our part to spread the news around especially to those who are still ignorant of what’s been happening. This is the kind of crap we get when we have a govt with 2/3 majority in Parliament pushing laws to their favour and extending the tenure of EC chairmans.
pablo – Good idea but kenot kena tangkap ah? We, the rakyats have been so cowed by the word ISA.
CY – š
bongkerz – See his face oso tulan.
terence – Alphonso is an accounting student, he oredi said, RM2.4 million is the cost. Don’t know how much the consortium who was given the tender to import and deliver to the stations around the country leh? Shipment and local transportation leh? Must be at least RM24 million liao.
No, won’t kena tangkap. Under what law will kena tangkap? Littering? LOL! But seriously, whatever that is published on internet is already published for the world. So, printing them or forwarding the articles for others makes no difference. It is not your opinion anyway. It is the blogger’s / author’s opinion.
Best is, we print RPK, Anwar’s, Jeff Ooi’s and Lim Kit Siang’s articles as they are more credible and backed by facts, stats and evidence for whatever they say. It’s time to make a concerted effort seeing that BN is pulling all their resources and tricks to win the election.