Madam Chair,
Catering to Singaporean voters overseas, and ensuring they can cast their vote as easily as possible, is important for their democratic participation. It is also, after all, a civic duty that is mandatory in Singapore.
Many Singaporeans are deprived of the chance to cast their vote at general elections or by-elections, because travelling to overseas polling stations could be very much a hassle that is impractical.
I would like to ask what percentage of all eligible Singaporean voters do overseas voters make up, and how many percent of eligible overseas voters actually cast their votes in the last general election, and the subsequent two by-elections.
I would like to propose if the Election Department could come up with reasonable means for one to cast one’s vote privately, without having to travel long distances or to forfeit one’s right to vote. Would the Elections Department consider introducing postal ballot?
As it stands, there are only ten designated overseas polling stations for Singaporean voters – in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Canberra and Dubai.
The overseas polling stations tend to be at our embassies or consulates in these cities. We certainly have many more embassies and consulates around the world than those ten.
There should be ballot boxes in every representative state of a large country such as Australia, where there tend to be many Singaporeans. There are a sizeable population of Singaporeans living in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne , yet there are no polling stations there. Voters from Perth would have to travel over 3,000 km to Canberra just to cast their votes.
Separately, there is a need to have transparency in transporting the sealed boxes of uncounted votes back to Singapore by MFA officials.
There should also be a need to have a third neutral person to accompany the sealed voting boxes back to Singapore.
I would like to make a proposal to the government to educate Singaporean on how the process is involved when overseas votes are brought back to Singapore for counting and tallying during a General Election. Thank you.
Lina Chiam
*Article first appeared on http://www.spp.org.sg/overseas-voting-pmo/