SINGAPORE — The Elections Department Singapore (ELD) has apologised for the “human error and miscommunication” between two election officials, which resulted in a voter being unable to cast her ballot at the General Election last Friday (July 10).

The woman, who belonged to Holland-Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency, had made a police report when she ended up marking her choice on a tendered ballot paper, which would not be counted.

The incident was first reported by Chinese daily Lianhe Wanbao. The woman, who was identified only as Madam Lum, 36, told the newspaper that she arrived at her designated polling station at Block 23A Ghim Moh Link at about 12.30pm on Polling Day. However, when she tried to scan her National Registration Identity Card (NRIC), an error message popped up.

Several unsuccessful attempts later, she was told by an election official that her NRIC had been used to vote earlier.

After Mdm Lum insisted that she had yet to cast her vote, an official issued her a tendered ballot and got her to sign an Oath of Identity form to confirm her identity and declare that she had not already voted.

Tendered ballot papers are issued to individuals who apply to cast their vote even after the Presiding Officer has informed them that they have already voted. The Presiding Officer is an election official who conducts and assists with polling proceedings at a polling station.

The Parliamentary Elections Act states that these votes are not counted and will instead be placed into separate packets, sealed and retained. According to the Act, tendered votes are only required for the purposes of an application to void an election on certain grounds, including in the event that illegal practices were committed or there was non-compliance of the polls with provisions in the Act.   

In response to TODAY’s queries, ELD clarified that Mdm Lum’s NRIC was not used to register to vote on Polling Day.

“The mistake was due to human error and miscommunication between the two election officials handling her registration on Polling Day."

It added that the system did not register Mdm Lum’s NRIC successfully because the Presiding Officer had not “switched out of the wrong module of the e-registration system”, which was used to serve the previous voter.

The Presiding Officer then escalated the matter to the Assistant Returning Officer, who assists to oversee the smooth conduct of elections.

“However, a miscommunication between the Presiding Officer and Assistant Returning Officer led the latter to interpret that Mdm Lum’s NRIC number had already been used to register for voting earlier in the day. This was then wrongly communicated to Mdm Lum,” ELD said.

The agency has reached out to Mdm Lum to clarify the issue and apologise to her. Her name will also be restored to the Registers of Electors without penalty.

Apart from the latest incident, ELD has repeatedly apologised for long queues on July 10 at some polling stations, which were attributed to Covid-19 safety measures and led to an extension of voting hours.