Kota Kinabalu, Thursday, 9 March 2023
The long outstanding efforts of Sabahans to ensure that our electoral rolls are clean and not tainted by illegal or dubious voters will now have to be taken up by our government leaders at both the federal and Sabah levels.
This is because the the High Court at Kota Kinabalu has, on 12 December 2022, ruled that there are other avenues to seek remedy to clean up the electoral rolls. These alternative avenues are administrative and political processes.
In mid-November last year, three other Assemblymen and myself have filed an application for a judicial review to get the Election Commission and the National Registration Department to conduct a forensic audit and investigation of the 2022 electoral rolls that was about to be used for the parliamentary elections of 26 November 2022.
My co-plaintiffs are Abidin Bin Madingkir (Assemblyman for Paginatan), Jasnih Daya (Assemblyman for Pantai Dalit) and Anwar Ayuub@ Annuar Ayub (Assemblyman for Liawan).
In view of the availability of alternative avenues and recourse, other than through the courts, I have instructed our lawyers to not appeal the order of the High Court that had refused our application for judicial review.
As a victim of dubious electoral rolls in the past, I am fervently concerned that the electoral rolls must be clean and contain only legal voters.
We, the plaintiffs, would like to thank our witnesses, the legal team and people who have encouraged our legal action in the interests of Sabah.
Yong Teck Lee
Nominated Assemblyman