Tindak Malaysia - Elections Commission (EC/SPR) http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/ en Fri, 24 May 2013 11:23:06 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/images/misc/rss.png Tindak Malaysia - Elections Commission (EC/SPR) http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/ NPC: Redelineation of constituency boundaries to begin soon http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/showthread.php/6820-NPC-Redelineation-of-constituency-boundaries-to-begin-soon?goto=newpost Thu, 23 May 2013 15:04:35 GMT Image:...
Redelineation of constituency boundaries to begin soon





  • 4:15PM May 23, 2013

A study on the redelineation of electoral constituencies, which was postponed two years ago, will begin soon, said Election Commission (EC) deputy chairperson Wan Ahmad Wan Omar.

He said the redelineation of electoral constituencies and boundaries could be carried out in accordance with Article 113 (2) (ii) of the federal constitution as the last exercise was done 10 years ago.

“The last exercise should have been conducted in 2011 as the last one was done in 2003, but we had to postpone it until the 13th general election was over.

“The review and redelineation of the parliamentary and state constituencies has to be carried out as the constitution stipulates than the EC has to carry out the exercise once every eight years.

“So we will carry out the exercise gradually before submitting it to Parliament,” he told Bernama after an interview with Bernama TV on the ‘Hello Malaysia’ programme last night.

He said the redelineation exercise was very important because the country had undergone many changes, including migration of people from city to city, over the last 10 years.

“For example, when we review the electoral boundaries in 2003, Kota Damansara was not as advanced as it is now. There was no Mutiara Damansara then and many squatter settlements had been cleared to make way for apartments, so definitely the number of voters has changed,” he said.


Call for resignation disrespectful of Agong


Commenting on Pakatan Rakyat’s urging for the EC chairperson and him to resign, claiming fraud in GE13, he said it was disrespectful of the constitution and the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

He said as an independent body that did not represent any party and appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong after consultation with the Conference of Rulers, the EC’s role should not be undermined.


“This urging comes from narrow minded people. We had done our best. If we are not transparent and if the EC is in favour of Barisan Nasional, how come they could win 89 seats, and wrested Selangor and Penang easily?” he said.


Wan Ahmad said he believed the opposition had another agenda in mind or wanted to create havoc by inciting the people, particularly the younger generation by inflaming hatred.

- Bernama


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 ]]> Elections Commission (EC/SPR) pywong http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/showthread.php/6820-NPC-Redelineation-of-constituency-boundaries-to-begin-soon SPR: US - My plan to fix Congress, Krist Novoselic http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/showthread.php/6816-SPR-US-My-plan-to-fix-Congress-Krist-Novoselic?goto=newpost Thu, 23 May 2013 13:58:39 GMT SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013 02:32 AM MPSTKrist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction... SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013 02:32 AM MPSTKrist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction

Nirvana's former bassist is working to end political dysfunction. Here's his plan to make Congress more accountable

BY KRIST NOVOSELIC

TOPICS: NIRVANA, ELECTORAL REFORM, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, U.S. CONGRESS, U.S. CONSTITUTION, CITIZENS UNITED, GERRYMANDERING, WASHINGTON STATE, PENNSYLVANIA,CONNECTICUT, NORM ORNSTEIN, REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS, EDITOR'S PICKS, ELECTIONS NEWS,ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, POLITICS NEWS
Krist Novoselic
(Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

That Congress is totally dysfunctional is evident to most Americans, with just 16 percenttelling pollsters they approve of the job the body is doing. The good news is there’s a constitutional solution that would dramatically improve its efficacy, boost participation, and curb partisan obstruction: switching to a form of proportional representation by electing multiple members in each district based on how it votes.


Legend and myth was important to ancient Roman society. They practiced augury, such as reading the way birds fly, then attributing bad situations to unhappy gods. In reality, their government (a republic, no less) was run by a few elites who made bad decisions. Americans tend to be similar in buying into myths, while a real culprit of our stagnant democracy is right before our eyes. Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned, but too many of us are focused on distractions — like blaming Citizens United v. FEC for everything wrong with politics — while political insiders rig the game.


I don’t have to tell Salon readers about gerrymandering. It is as plain as day that political insiders draw lines to protect their interests. However, there’s another effect of this process. Democrats tend to get packed into urban districts or disbursed in rural areas, and this causes distortions. For example, last November in liberal Seattle, Rep. Jim McDermott won over 79 percent of the vote. Where I live in the third Congressional district of Washington state, the Democrat who lost got almost 40 percent. Nevertheless, in Seattle, no matter how great the Democrat did (whether 80 percent or 50.1), the party won a single seat; meanwhile, in my district, a not too shabby 40 percent got no representation. It’s been noted that nationally the Democratic Party won more votes than Republicans but still lost the House by 233-201. That’s not democracy.


The solution is two-fold. First, Congress needs to pass a law mandating citizen-led independent redistricting commissions in each state for U.S. House elections. This will take the power away from the insiders who skew maps and let commissions of citizens independent of the legislature draw maps. California has such a system. But this alone is not enough to provide more fairness to our elections; these commissions still tend to determine which parties are winners or losers before any ballot is cast.


As mentioned earlier, the commissions need to have the option of drawing multimember districts that are elected with an American form of proportional representation. Unlike European party-based systems with low thresholds for election, American fair-representation systems are candidate based (and already used in counties in Pennsylvania and Connecticut).


Here’s what it might look like: Voters get one vote to elect three representatives, and the top three vote-getters win election. This way, many U.S. House district would be shared between Republicans and Democrats. There would suddenly be Northeastern Republican members of Congress, which would make the Republican Party more attuned to the needs of that region. There would also be more Southern Democrats, further limiting the regional segregation we see in Congress. What’s more, voters in strongly Democratic or Republican districts will no longer feel their vote doesn’t matter. If you’re in the minority party in your district, you can still get representation in Congress.


This arrangement could even create room for independents and third parties, meaning the U.S. House would better reflect the nation than under the current skewed rules. Scholars like Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann have pointed to the potential for less partisanshipand blind obstruction; this system would address this need.


To be clear, this isn’t stargazing or mysticism, but a practical solution to the real problems of gerrymandering that’s both proven to work and constitutionally protected. For those attached to the current system, it is worth noting that the status quo arrangement of single-member districts for Congress was a political decision made in 1967 — a fairly recent rule, not one written by the nation’s founders. While the proposal above will not likely happen overnight, we’re in the middle of a fast-changing information revolution, and our political system is struggling. We need new solutions and better representation. This proposal achieves both.


Krist Novoselic, a former member of Nirvana, is the chairman of the board at FairVote, a national organization focused on fundamental structural reform of American elections.
 ]]> Elections Commission (EC/SPR) pywong http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/showthread.php/6816-SPR-US-My-plan-to-fix-Congress-Krist-Novoselic SPR Redelineation: Pakatan MPs to use parliamentary strength to block unfair redelineation http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/showthread.php/6803-SPR-Redelineation-Pakatan-MPs-to-use-parliamentary-strength-to-block-unfair-redelineation?goto=newpost Thu, 23 May 2013 04:39:43 GMT Pakatan MPs to use parliamentary strength to block unfair redelineation... Pakatan MPs to use parliamentary strength to block unfair redelineation


BY CLARA CHOOI
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
MAY 22, 2013
People queue at a polling station in Gelang Patah, May 5, 2013. — File picKUALA LUMPUR, May 22 ― Pakatan Rakyat (PR) federal lawmakers have vowed to make full use of their increased parliamentary numbers to ensure constituencies are fairly redrawn when the Election Commission (EC) kicks off the redelineation exercise this year-end.

PKR’s Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli reminded that if the exercise involves an increase in seat numbers, a two-thirds majority vote is needed to approve the changes before they are passed by the lower House.


The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) does not have required two-thirds majority in Parliament, with only 133 seats to PR’s 89 seats, and will require votes from opposition lawmakers to approve the exercise.


“But if they (EC) do not add constituencies and the process only includes redrawing boundaries, this could be dangerous as this allows gerrymandering and there is no need for a two-third vote.





“In the past, they (BN) score big in the elections because the redelineation exercise is often in [their] favour ... they disperse our support to other seats,” Rafizi told The Malaysian Insider.


But the PKR strategy director said it was likely that, this time, redelineation would include an increase in seat numbers.


He said that in tandem with the DAP’s “one vote, one value” campaign push, PR lawmakers will fight hard to use their parliamentary powers to ensure voters are more fairly distributed unlike the present situation.


The allegedly unfair dispersal of voters in constituencies here has been used as a major argument point by PR lawmakers to back accusations that gerrymandering in favour of BN has helped the ruling pact stay in power.


In a recent article on news portal FZ.com, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan had pointed out that the existing delineation of constituencies defies logic in terms of size and the number of voters.


“Putrajaya has 15,791 voters compared with Kapar, which has 144,159 voters. It doesn’t make sense.”


“And then you have a state seat like Sri Serdang with 72,769 voters which is higher than the Putrajaya parliamentary seat,” he was quoted saying.


This has also earned the attention of the foreign media.


In the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Hong Kong journalist Philip Bowring commented on how PR had lost the election despite winning 51 per cent of the popular vote ― an outcome that opposition lawmakers and civil society groups have blamed on unfair gerrymandering.


“Thanks to an extreme anti-urban bias and the abolition of rules governing the relative size of constituencies, the largest constituency has nine times more voters than the smallest.


“On that basis, and taking account of the number of closely fought seats, the opposition would probably have to win at least 58 per cent of the popular vote to get a majority of seats,” Bowring wrote.


Speaking to The Malaysian Insider, DAP’s publicity secretary Tony Pua said with the polls now over and efforts underway to challenge some of the results through election petitions, the next step for PR would be to focus on the coming redelineation exercise.


The EC recently said that the exercise will be kicked off by year-end after the six-month process to hear election petitions are completed. The petitions must be filed within 21 days after the results of the election are gazetted.


The Federal Constitution prohibits a redelineation exercise from being conducted within eight years of the last. The EC last redrew constituency lines in 2003.


“The focus will be on one man, one vote, one value, apart from pushing other related reforms. What we want is a more level playing field in the next general election.


“And this means that we should not be seeing a coalition winning the popular vote but losing the parliamentary seat count by a mile,” Pua said.


“Given that BN does not have two-thirds majority in Parliament, the exercise must be agreeable to both sides,” he added.


DAP’s Seremban MP Anthony Loke agreed with his party colleague, saying it was important that PR makes full use of its influence in Parliament and put up a fight if they are disagreeable to the EC’s redelineation proposal.


“We have more than one-third of our MPs in Parliament. We are a strong enough force to ensure that redelineation is done properly and professionally.


“The weightage of votes cannot be as ridiculous as it is today,” he said.


PAS’s Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad said there must be a more “reasonable” spread of voters across the constituencies to ensure that every vote has the same value across all constituencies.


“In some cases, you have a parliamentary seat with less than 10,000 voters... and elsewhere, you have seats with over 100,000 voters.


“We will be trying to push for fairer representation across the board,” he said.


BN snapped up 133 federal seats to PR’s 89 seats in the May 5 polls but for the first time ince 1969, the ruling pact lost the popular vote, scoring just under 48 per cent of the votes cast to PR’s 51 per cent.


PR leaders immediately cried foul with its de facto chief Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim insisting that his federal opposition pact had won the election. ]]> Elections Commission (EC/SPR) pywong http://www.tindakmalaysia.com/showthread.php/6803-SPR-Redelineation-Pakatan-MPs-to-use-parliamentary-strength-to-block-unfair-redelineation