SANDAKAN: A total of 270 police personnel are expected to cast their ballots on Tuesday in early voting for the Sandakan by-election.
The Election Commission (EC) said that the early voting centre at the Marine Police senior officers’ mess will be open from 8am to 2pm.
Meanwhile, the voting centre at the Sandakan police station house club will be in operation from 8am until noon.
“The early voting process will be witnessed by each candidate’s agent and appointed election observers from non-governmental organisations (and other agencies).
“We will also live-stream the voting process via our official Facebook page,” EC chairman Azhar Azizan Harun said in a statement, today.
He said all ballot boxes will be kept at the police station until election day this Saturday.
Vote counting will be conducted at Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan Tiong Hua, Sandakan, Azhar added.
The Sandakan parliamentary seat fell vacant following the death of DAP’s Datuk Stephen Wong on March 28.
The by-election is seeing a five-cornered fight between Stephen’s daughter Vivian, former Batu Sapi MP Datuk Linda Tsen, and three independent candidates – Sulaiman Abdul Samat, Hamzah Abdullah and Chia Siew Yung.
Based on the 2018 Voter Registry, there are 39,856 ordinary voters, 270 early voters and five absent voters in Sandakan.