40 voters surprised to find Padang Serai centre closed

KULIM: Polling for the Padang Serai parliamentary seat has been postponed following the death of one of its candidates but some people were unaware of this and turned up at their designated polling centres to vote.

Some voters arrived at SK Sri Limau, Lunas, yesterday, not realising voting had stopped.

Saad-idi Ismail, 43, who is hearing impaired, came with his wife, who is also a person with disability. Their three children were with them.

The family arrived at the school at about 3pm from Bukit Mertajam, Penang, about 14km away.

Saad-idi approached a Bernama reporter, holding a piece of paper with a question about why the polling station was closed.

When informed that polling for the seat had been postponed following the death of Pakatan Harapan candidate M. Karupaiya, he looked shocked and said he was not aware of this.

“Is it true? My wife and I drove all the way here.

“Then when should we come back again (to vote)?” he wrote on the paper before passing it back to the reporter.

Another voter, Low Teck Chai, 28, said he knew about Karupaiya’s death but was not aware that polling had been postponed.

“I read the news about his death. Should have checked on the Election Commission’s website, I guess,” he said according to Bernama.

A security guard at the school, Muhammad Zuhairi Asri, said that at 3pm, about 40 people had arrived to vote, not realising that polling had been postponed.

“Pity them. There was also a family from Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

The Election Commission has set Dec 7 as the new polling day for the seat.

Karupaiya, 69, the incumbent Padang Serai MP, was admitted to Hospital Kulim last Monday after collapsing while campaigning. He died at 2.27pm on Wednesday.