JOHOR BARU: As of March this year, the total number of voters nationwide registered with the Election Commission (EC) stands at 14,305,849.
EC chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah said this latest figure represented the number that will be put into the latest electoral roll, updated for the first quarter of this year.
He said that besides the 14.31 million registered voters, there were another 3,858,471 people, aged 21 and above who were eligible but have not registered themselves as voters.
"The current figure of unregistered voters has decreased. The figure had stood at 4.06 million in September last year, and now it has gone down to about 3.8 million due to registration drives conducted by the EC.
"The EC is going all out to register all eligible voters for the upcoming general election," Hashim told reporters after a voter registration drive conducted by the EC at the Pasar Borneo in Taman Megah Ria here today.
Speaking at a press conference, he said that rather than waiting for voters to come to EC to register, the EC will embark on an outreach programme to register new voters.
"We have caravans that will go into universities to register the students.
"After that EC will campaign aggressively to get the voters to come out and vote as every vote counts," Hashim said.
On the programme, he said it the EC was also making sure those who were eligible among the large Sarawakian and Sabahan community in Johor would make sure they were registered voters. The programme will also check on their voter status, and other related matters.
He said there are 55,000 Sabahans and Sarawakians in Johor. Of these 40,000 are Sarawakians and 15,000 (Sabahans).