KUALA LUMPUR (July 16): The Election Commission (EC) is currently engaging local and foreign parties to look into the implementation of electronic voting (e-voting) but is still not convinced of its effectiveness, according to Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan.

He said e-voting presents several new challenges surrounding issues of secrecy, security, costs as well as education for the voters on this system.

"The EC is still not satisfied with e-voting, especially with issues of secret and security. However, the EC will continue to engage the relevant parties in relation to e-voting," he said.

Meanwhile, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid (BN-Padang Terap) pointed out that e-voting had already been implemented in many countries and therefore asked the minister whether the EC is considering to simultaneously conduct e-voting as well as the conventional method of voting.

Takiyuddin agreed that many countries had implemented e-voting, such as Estonia, Brazil, India, Switzerland and the US, although reports showed that these countries are reviewing their implementation as several improvements are needed.

He also said that some countries had reverted back to the manual voting system.

"There were many factors which rendered the results of the elections questionable," said the minister.

Ahmad Fahmi Mohamed Fadzil (PH-Lembah Pantai) asked whether the EC had any plans to improve the voting process for Malaysians overseas, noting the issues faced during the previous general election.

Takiyuddin said the EC is always monitoring, and also conducted a post-mortem after the election.

"The EC has been satisfied with how the overseas voting was conducted. There will be improvements from time to time," he said.

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