Malaysiakini: 900 voters named 'Fatimah Ismail' found

Malaysiakini: 900 voters named 'Fatimah Ismail' found

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/227335

Koh Jun Lin 1:37PM Apr 19, 2013

The states of Kedah, Kelantan, Pahang and Terengganu have a disproportionately high number of voters sharing the same names, including 900 named ‘Fatimah Ismail’.

Of these, there are 14 instances of ‘Fatimah Ismail’ sharing the same birthdays, and 10 of these instances also had their identity cards issued from the same state.

“This (pattern) is found in all the top names that we can find. Imagine two gentlemen named ‘Ismail’ having their daughter born on the same day and naming them ‘Fatimah’, and it is within the same village,” said Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project (Merap) research assistant Lee Wee Tak.
In comparison, he said other states such and Perak and Negri Sembilan have far fewer instances of voters with the same name.


The most popular voter name in Perak is ‘Fatimah Ahmad’ with a mere 55 instances, for example, compared to 412 ‘Fatimah Ismails’ in Kedah.

Even when Merap tried to reduce coincidences by searching for at least three matches in both name and date of birth, Lee said he is still left with 263 voters throughout Malaysia who meet the criteria.

In most cases, these voters appear to live close to each other, but about two-thirds of them have incomplete addresses.

Leading the pack is Terengganu with 50 voters, Perak with 41, Kelantan with 31, and Kedah with 26.

In one example, he said there are three voters named ‘Ab Rapar Awang’ sharing the same birthday on July 15, 1949. Two of them are registered to vote in the Indera Mahkota parliamentary constituency, while another votes in the neighbouring Paya Besar.

Meanwhile, Sabah and Sarawak have the highest number of voters over the age of 100 - 1,062 and 475 persons respectively.

Lee said that in addition to the unusually high number of centenarians, these voters also tend to register at a relatively advanced age. On average, Sabah centenarian voters registered at 84 years of age and Sarawak voters at 65.

“Of course, people might say that Malaysia has a high standard of living and people start to live longer. We present to you these individuals who are born in 1897 (116 years old) and 1898 (115 years old),” he said referring to a voter in Penang and another in Perak.

“It is highly unlikely that they are alive at this time,” he said.

For comparison, the Guinness World Record for the oldest person is 122 years and 164 days, held by a now-deceased French woman.