VoteKad

One step closer to error-free electoral roll in Malaysia

Two main sources of electoral roll errors in Malaysia are believed to be:

• • Volunteers. Volunteers from various organizations, including political parties, who help fill-up and collect voter registration forms, may perform their tasks in a rush, are assigned high workload, suffer from fatigue, or sometimes possibly fooled by fake identity cards. As a result, they submit registration forms that contain mistakes, which range from wrong identity card number, name, gender, birth date to incorrect address. Sometimes, the mistakes might have been intentionally or unintentionally made by voters who fill-up the forms themselves.

  • Data entry staff. Due to the same reasons, the work of data entry staff of the election commission is also susceptible to the same kind of errors. Their errors may have been one of the contributing factors of wrong voting district assignments.

How VoteKad helps:

• • It eliminates the need for volunteers and voters to manually fill-up voter registration forms. So, they will no longer unintentionally introduce errors in voter data.

  • It simplifies and speeds up the voter registration procedure. Now, with a few taps on the screen, accurate voter data is captured. Due to the simplicity and speed, registration can be done anywhere - on the street, in a shopping mall, at a car-park, in a market, on a train, in a bus, and may be even during a flight. Besides, one moment, it can be done on a street, and the next moment, on a bus that has just picked up passengers along the street. This is, it also offers mobility.

  • It provides an opportunity for the election commission to computerize the data entry task. This in turn gets rid of the chance of committing unintentional mistakes by the staff.

Usage illustration:

If you wish to delve into the details directly, just skip this section. Otherwise, this picture should suffice.

These are the two applications referred to in the illustration - VoteKad and FormFiller SPR A NW. Both are free.

This is the unsigned blank SPR A NW voter registration form :

Click to download directly from SPR website

Compatibility with the existing procedure:

• • Since our law school graduates want signatures on registration forms, no problem, the volunteers can carry a write pad with a stack of blank forms. After using VoteKad to capture the voter data, he or she lets the voter sign on a blank form, and then writes the voter name somewhere on the form. Not in the name field, but on some unused space. This is to allow him or her to associate a signed form with a voter later on.

  • As the election commission wants a physical form, after returning to the base or home, the volunteer exports the captured data to both a db file and a csv file. The db file can be used directly by the free application FormFiller SPR A NW to generate pdf that can be printed on the SPR voter registration form A series NW. The pdf contains one voter per page, with data positioned in the exact places required by the form. The voters are arranged according to name or IC number, depending on the choice of the volunteer. If a complicated way is preferred, he or she can send or copy the csv file to a desktop or notebook. On the desktop or notebook, a word-processor can nicely arrange the captured data, one voter per page, using facilities like the long-available mail-merge function. Then the volunteer prints out the pages on the signed forms. Apparently, he or she needs to insert the right form in the printer when printing a page. The name written on each form earlier will now be useful.

  • Because the election commission wants a copy of the identity card, the volunteer can take a picture of the card after capturing its data. Upon returning to the base or home, he or she prints out all the pictures, and attach each of them to the right forms that have now been nicely filled-up by the printer.

  • Since the election commission also wants a witness signature, the appropriate witness can now sign on each of the forms.

  • Finally, the forms can be submitted to the election commission. Since we talked about providing an opportunity for the commission to computerize the data entry task, the volunteer can enclose the csv file in the submission.

Possible usage:

• 1. Do preparation. Prepare a write pad with a stack of blank voter registration forms. Of course, get a pen ready. If preferred, also carry a pencil for writing the voter name on a form.

  2. Turn on the Android smartphone or tablet, then connect the reader to it, either directly or using a micro- or mini-sized USB OTG cable. Finally, launch the VoteKad application.

  3. Ask your target. Approach a passer-by, and request for consent to register him or her as a voter.

  4. Capture personal particulars. If the person agrees, then get his or her identity card (MyKad), insert into the reader, and tap on the Read button. The personal particulars on the chip of the card will be displayed. This includes the new and old identity card numbers, name, birth date and address etc.

  5. If necessary, ask for the phone number of the person and enter it in the phone number field.

  6. There are three remark fields for entering anything extra.

  7. Tap on the Save button to capture the personal particulars, the phone number and the remarks.

  8. Get target to sign. Let the person sign on a blank voter registration form. Then write his or her name somewhere on the form, possibly using a pencil. Not in the name field, as the field will be nicely filled-in by the printer later on.

  9. Take a picture of the identity card, whether using the built-in camera or a separate digital camera.

  10. Repeat steps 3 to 9 for every targeted passer-by. If the reader is disconnected from the smartphone or tablet, after re-connection, remember to tap the Android back button that is usually located at the lower-left corner of the screen to quit the VoteKad application and then relaunch it.

  11. Export data to file. At the base or home, tap on the Export button to export the captured voter data to a db file and a csv file.

  12. There are two choices - Give the db file to FormFiller to generate pdf files that can be printed on the voter registration form, or give the csv file to a word-processor and rely on the mail-merge function to fill-up the form.

  13. Use FormFiller

      1. 1. Run FormFiller SPR A NW. SPR A NW is the voter registration form A of series NW from the election commission.

         2. Choose whether to generate a form-filling pdf file for the voter or the witness section of the form, and whether to arrange the voters by identity card number or by name.

         3. When asked for a db file, select the db file exported by VoteKad just now.

         4. Send the generated pdf file to a printer. Each page of the file corresponds to one voter or one witness. Print each page on the correct signed form.

  14. Use mail-merge function of a word-processor

• • • 1. Send or copy the csv file to a desktop or notebook that has a word-processor. Then import the csv to the word-processor. The data in the file is comma-delimited.

      2. Do mail-merge. Use the mail-merge function of the word-processor to nicely arrange the personal particulars of each voter, so that they fit correctly into the corresponding fields of the voter registration form.

      3. Get a signed form, look for the right page generated by the mail-merge function for the person. Then use a printer to print the page on the signed form. Repeat this for all the signed forms.

• 15. Print the pictures of the identity cards. Then attach each printed picture to the corresponding signed form.

  16. Get witness to sign. Get an appropriate witness to sign the forms.

  17. Submit form to election commission. Store the csv file in a USB thumb drive. And submit the drive together with the signed forms to the election commission. To save cost, hundreds of forms prepared by all volunteers of the same organization over a certain period of time can be submitted together. Their csv files can all be put in the same drive.

  18. Mail a copy of the signed forms to the voters if desirable. Their addresses in the csv file can be printed on envelopes, using the mail-merge function of the word-processor again.