Melaka polls: OCR-VA system won’t affect voting secrecy or time taken to vote, says EC

An Election Commission staff member inspects voting equipment during a check at the official vote-tallying centre for the 16th Melaka state election at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Ayer Keroh November 13, 2026. — Bernama pic

First Published: Friday, 13 Nov 2026 1:24 PM MYT

JASIN, Nov 13 — The use of the Optical Character Recognition-Voters Attendance (OCR-VA) system has no direct impact on the secrecy of votes or the time taken by voters to cast their ballots.

Election Commission (EC) deputy chairman Dr Azmi Sharom hoped that the public and all stakeholders would accept the implementation of the system positively as part of ongoing efforts to improve and modernise the country’s voting process.

He said that, based on observations so far, the system is simple, accurate and easy to understand, and did not pose difficulties for election workers in operating it.

“So far, we see that this is a system that our election workers need to get accustomed to, but it’s not that difficult. As far as we know, they don’t find the system too confusing or complicated. It’s quite simple and accurate.

“So, we’re continuing (with it). This is part of our efforts to further modernise our voting system. And I feel that it has no impact whatsoever on the secrecy of your votes,” he added.

Azmi told reporters this after inspecting the ballot box contents verification process for the 16th Melaka State Election for the Merlimau state constituency at Politeknik Merlimau here today.

Elaborating, he said the EC was continuing to use the system because of its ability to collect and display voter attendance data in real time on the commission’s website, compared with the previous method, which was updated once every hour.

He advised voters to check their respective polling centres and voting streams in advance via MySPR Semak before heading to their cast their ballots tomorrow to avoid going to the wrong location.

Azmi said voters without internet access should arrive earlier and check their details at the EC’s checking counters set up outside polling centres.

Get the latest updates on the state election at https://election.bernama.com/prn/melaka/2026/. — Bernama