The 11th general election was a terrible shame, thanks to SPR (EC). Words cant describe how dissappointed and frustrated i was (and still am) of the whole affair. Missing voters names, printing errors and other irregularities are not expected from a body such as the EC as this is not the first time that it had carried out elections. To me, the elections this yr was a joke.

Being a registered fisrst time voter, i was very excited on voting. I checked my name on the EC's website a couple of days before the day of election and found that i was listed and i was registered under the Titiwangsa Parliamentary Constituency and the Kg Pandan Dalam DUN. I tried to find my polling location, but the site could not provide me with that. On the election day, i went to Kg Pandan Dalam and i checked my name at one of the "peraih undi" booths. They said that my name wasnt there and it could be in some other voting location's list as my name was listed under the federal territory instead of selangor and kg pandan dalam (the place that i went to) was actually under selangor. So, i asked them where i should go and they could only say "try desa pandan". ok... no blame on them because they are just the peraih undi... They werent suppose to know the whole list of voting locations anyway.

So i went off to Desa Pandan and went staright to the EC's checkpoint to check my name. Thankfully, my name was listed and that particular place was where i was supposed to vote. They issued a serial number and pointed me to channel 8, so to channel 8 i went. I queued up for like 45 minutes and when i was finally inside for the 2nd point name check, the officer found out that the name listed under the serial number that was issued to me wasnt my name! He was confused and rechecked and finally he approached the head officer at the back of the polling room. All the officer could say to me was "Kalau nama cik takde kat dlm list ni, cik tak boleh mengundi. Cuba cik check kat dlm internet kat mana cik patut mengundi." And i replied "Saya dah check dah. Mana ada senarai tmpt mengundi." The officer ckp blk "Saya pun takleh buat apa2 cik. Nama cik takde." My ass! How can he say that he couldnt do anything? How can such thing even happen? How come the name list at the 1st checkpoint didnt tally with the one in the 2nd checkpoint. How come the officers cannot do anything about it and expect us, the voters to look for our polling locations ourselves. We are not EC members. We dont know where all the polling centres are for god's sakes. How can they expect us to search high and low for our polling location? The EC should come up with something more efficient. Why not connect all the centres with internet or something so that if anything happens, the main database can be contacted. If they cannot prepare something efficeiently withing 1 week, why carry out the elections within a week anyway? They have a 60 days period to carry out the general elections.. what's the big rush? kalau rush tu berhasil takpe jugak. Ini?

And... how come the 1st count of votes show a win of a certain candidate with 36 majority and the recount shows that the candidate loses with a majority of 500? What was that about? With all these mishap, how are we, the common people are supposed to rely on the credibilty of the EC?

My first voting experience was terrible... and it will haunt me (and maybe others who faced the same problem) on the next general elections. I wanted to be a responsible citizen and vote, but all that had happened bruised my trust and confidence towards the EC. Whether or not i will vote on the next general elections.. only time will tell.