Overseas votes do matter

May 9, 2006
Elections Department

I refer to Ms Sheri Kristen Goh Kwee Hwa’s letter on overseas voting (The Straits Times, 9 May 2006).

Although this time the overseas votes are to be counted after the results have already been announced, overseas votes certainly do matter. If local votes counted for a particular electoral division had been inconclusive because the votes of registered overseas electors may affect this result, the announcement of the result would have been deferred until the day when the overseas votes are counted. For example, if the difference in votes between the winning and losing candidates in a constituency was say, 500, and the total of overseas electors for that constituency was 500 or more, the result would have been inconclusive, and announcement would have had to await the overseas vote-count.

In this General Election, the winning margin, based on the local votes counted, was clearly higher than the total overseas votes for every constituency. Hence, it serves no purpose to delay the declaration of winning candidates/groups of candidates. However, overseas votes will still be counted, and added to the local votes and subsequently published in the Government Gazette.

The Elections Department thanks Ms Goh and all other overseas voters for discharging their civic responsibility to vote despite being overseas, and encourages all eligible overseas Singaporeans who would otherwise miss the chance to vote, to do so in future elections.

Ms Emilyn Yah
Manager (Public Education and Training)
Elections Department