DPM: Electoral system is of high integrity

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Process is transparent and secured with safeguards, Teo Chee Hean tells forum
By Jeremy Au Yong

THE Singapore electoral system came under scrutiny at a youth dialogue yesterday, as participants quizzed Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean and other officials on the finer points of the process.

Questions flew thick and fast, with many centred on the neutrality of civil servants who serve as election officials.

Responding, Mr Teo assured the 200 young people at the two-hour session that Singapore had a ‘high integrity system’.

First, he stressed, the process of voting and vote-counting was transparent and secured with many safeguards.

‘At every step, that system can be inspected by polling agents and counting agents of all the parties who take part in the elections,’ he said.

This ability to inspect every step was the reason Singapore still did everything manually, and was not switching to electronic voting systems, he added.

Second, he said, the Government had gone to great lengths, including setting up the elected presidency, to ensure the integrity of the civil service.

He said: ‘We ourselves put in place limitations on the Government to ensure that the Government cannot undermine the integrity of the public service.’

To top it off, he noted that the integrity of the system had not been challenged by other political parties.

Mr Teo was backed up yesterday by three panellists: Elections Department head Lee Seng Lup; People’s Association chief executive Tan Boon Huat, who had been involved in elections as an official since 1976; and Deputy Parliamentary Counsel Owi Beng Ki. Mrs Owi had been an adviser to returning officers in numerous elections.

The dialogue is the latest in the People’s Association Youth Movement Policy Forum Series. Yesterday’s event was the 52nd such forum.

From the start of the dialogue, it was apparent the participants had come armed with some sharp questions.

One participant asked how electoral boundaries were redrawn. This was followed quickly by another asking pointedly how the Government responded to allegations of gerrymandering.

To these, Mr Teo explained the rationale behind the practice. Boundaries were tweaked to correct imbalances caused by population movements and to ensure voters would not become disadvantaged because of a mass migration to their area.

Using the migration from the countryside to the city as an example, he said: ‘You could argue that if you don’t change the boundaries in such a case, what would happen is the value of each voter in the city is a lot less.’

Another asked about voter secrecy, in the light of the need to have serial numbers on the voting slips. The safeguards ensuring voter secrecy were then outlined, before Mr Teo added: ‘As a candidate myself, I want voters to vote honestly. I want that whole voting sequence to have integrity. I don’t want anyone to have any doubts that I was properly voted in.’

More than 20 questions were raised, many of oft-discussed political topics like the relevance of the GRC system, the voting age and whether it was possible for a politician to defect to a different party.

When it ended, Mr Teo said he was heartened by the crowd’s enthusiasm.

‘I’m very happy that many of you are interested and have asked a lot of questions about the electoral process and how we maintain its integrity… I’m glad because it means you do want your vote to count and I hope today’s discussion will help persuade that, in fact, we have a very, very high integrity system.’

jeremyau@sph.com.sg