Press Conference: DAP Electorate Validation Task Force has proven that EC and NRD online query is highly unreliable

preface

On March 2011, a team (DAP Electorate Validation Task Force) had been set up by DAP Bakri, Muar and Ledang Parliamentery Constituency Liason Commttees. 17 mathematicians, programmers, system designers and networking engineers are voluntary involved in this project. The Team is currently led and funded by MP Bakri Er Teck Hwa. The main objective of this task force is to setup a software system capable of locating and validating every single voter and develop an analyisis tool for voters' data from EC.

On July 2011, EC (Election Committee) decided to release it's online query system for public to verify voter registration address. With this convinience at hand, The Team successfully develop a batch processing software that will extract the data from EC and NRD (National Registration Department) online query system in order to validate original voters' data purchased from EC.

The software (Voter Checking System, VCS) can be operated from a standalone computer with internet connected. More then 30 machines (monitering station) had been equiped with this software and they are located nationalwide. With reference to MyKad ID provided by EC's electoral roll, VCS can extract the data through both EC and NRD online query system simutanously in 24 hours basic with minimun human-monitering and the result will be saved into database.

Each monitering station can be remotely controlled by the administrative supervisor and the master database update is done on a daily basic by downloading the data extracted from each monitering station.

VCS fundemental framework is accomplished and workable model had been trial-ran since August 2011. The Team is currently making their best effort to continue develop and enhance VCS features with more sofisticated algorithm to detect suspective voters from the electoral roll.

The following validated data is based on the electoral roll purchased from EC on June 2011 for Bakri Parliamentery Constituency (P145):

Till June 2011, Bakri Constituency was recorded to have 61101 voters.

Permanent Residents become voters

2 PR whose names appeared in the electoral roll.

MyKad ID:

481020715055
530801016052 （fig 1 & 2）

Figure 1

Figure 2

DAP Johor reaffirmed that numerous cases where PR became voters indicated that the government had a very serious issue on our National Security and also being the laughing stock for the international community. So far EC still maintain their "catch me if you can" attitude and waiting for the opposition parties to expose all these errors before they can be erased from their database. EC started to computerize voters' database since 2002. Why was it that Pakatan Rakyat had managed to develop a software to detect these mistake in half a year and started its validation operation within 2 months' time but at the same time EC had done nothing since its database computerisation on 2002?

EC is being funded from the Federal Government and they have sufficient full-time workers to do this job. Does it imply that EC is not capable of doing their job or they simply ignore their mistake?

Voter's address is incomplete

Form June 2011 till today, 309 voters were removed from P145 (Bakri) Parliamentery Constituency. After subtraction from these figures, there remains 60792 voters in the list. And:

9111 voters (14.98%) do not have any address record in EC database (Figure 3).

Figure 3

34332 voters (54.47%) do not have complete addresses recored in EC database (Figure 4, note: "ALAMAT" column shown imcomplete address, the addresses were extracted from EC online query system)

Figure 4

Furthermore the record does not show any address or incomplete address, they all can be categorized as "uncontactable voter". Under this category, it represents 43443 voters (9111+34332) or 71.46% of the total voters in the Bakri Parliamenetry Constituency.

According to the statistics shown above, EC does not have complete mailing addresses for 2/3 of the local voters. In other words, neither does the election candidate nor EC will be able to approach these voters since the voters' physical living addresses are unknown. The Team has done some survey and realise that some voters did fill-in their address when they registered as a voter (mainly before year 2000). Nevertheless, it never appeared on the EC online query system when they did the checking.

It is reasonable to believe that is due to negligence of EC Registrar or officers when they do the data input to the database system. Or else, if EC database do have valid address for voters, we can justify that EC has two sets of datas with them and the data that open for public query had been manipulated, and there are no original data.

Voters' MyKad ID not found in NRD database

Besides that, 5800 voters (9.54% of total voters) were detected with their MyKad status shown "no application/invalid data"(Tiada permohonan / No yang dimasukkan tidak sah)(Fig 5). Same circumstance also happen in P144 (Ledang) Parliamentery Constituency. In Ledang, 6524 voters' MyKad showed "no application" status in NRD online query system. The said statistics had been published in the media on 4th July 2011.

Figure 5

This abnormal phenomena had been detected since 6 weeks ago. Repeated test had been carried out to verify voters' MyKad number through EC and NRD online query system simutenously. Nevertheless, the same result had been obtained. The Team members have done some random checking for these MyKad numbers and have identified that some of them are valid Malayasian citizens. But their data cannot be found from the NRD online query system.

NDR's online query service only opens for the public during office hours. The service is closed during the weekends. This approach is considered inappropriate and it violates the operating principle of computer database. The Internet is to bring convenience to the public so that users can use the service every time they want 24 hours a day and throughout 365 days a year.

And NRD is now only open the service for query during office hours and this is against what the Internet is designed for. For instance, what will happen to other nations' users if Goggle search engine only opens for service during United States' working hours? Furthermore, if data updating and backup is involved, technically, the updating or backup procedure will not involve in shutting down the whole service. If they have to do that, it can be done during low traffic time. It is totally unacceptable to shut down the whole service during the whole off-office hours i.e. from 5 PM to next morning 8 AM.

For the same reason, if MoHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) which is handling the national security can do such thing, should "1Malaysia Email" only open for users during working hours and nobody can use any email service after working hours?

The team also discovered that when a confirmed valid MyKad number is entered into NRD query system, the server return with the status indicate that "no application/invalid data" or a "empty" status. At the same time, The Team use SMS query system provided by NRD to check if the same number is valid and they receive a SMS with the same result. Occasionally, the same valid MyKad number returns with "The Card had been corrected"(Kad telah diambil)status. (Fig 6)

Figure 6

MyKad ID without name appear in NRD database

Within 61101 MyKad ID from the electoral roll of P145 (Bakri) Parliamenetry Constituency, there are 155 MyKad ID without the name recorded in NRD database:
21 ID without name and "Kad telah diambil" status in blue color backgound (note: last check on 0310 hour 9th July 2011, the ID status became empty instead of "Kad telah diambil" )
59 ID without name and "No Application" status with blue color backgound
74 ID without name and status in purple color backgound
1 ID without name and "Sila rujuk cawangan JPN yang berdekatan" status with blue color backgound (note: last check on 0310 hour 9th July 2011, the ID status became empty instead of "Sila rujuk cawangan JPN yang berdekatan")

Figure 7.1 for MyKad ID without name and with status"Kad telah diambil"

Figure 7.2 for MyKad ID without name and status

All 155 MyKad IDs were listed in EC's original electoral roll of P145 (Bakri) Constituency. The same IDs had been verified and confirmd that they have been removed from the EC database.

On 3rd Oct 2011, 2288 voters from P144 (Ledang) Parliamentery Constituency which had been detected as their MyKad IDs without name and status is empty in NRD online query system. On 1500 hour 8th Oct 2011, VCS log file shown that all 2288 voters record are now available with their name intacted in NRD online query system.

Highly unreliable service

All these facts indicate that NRD onlien query service is highly unreliable and unstable. In spite of that, NRD yet collects 35 sen for each SMS query. After all, If service provided by NRD is unstable, why do they collect money for such servcie?

MyKad query system is the official online query system provided by NRD for public to validate their MyKad status, the data have to be accurate and stable, After an analysis made by The Team, 9.54% and 15.17% respectively from Bakri and Ledang total voters do not have their record from IRD database. And these are all valid MyKad ID. Does similar situations happen in other constituencies as well? Does this imply that NRD are moving MyKad data on a large scale? and what is the purpose for doing that?

For above questions, EC and MoHA must answer to the public.

Er Teck Hwa
MP for Bakri
09.09.2011