During this period, we’ve many things to worry: what time should you wake up tomorrow? What food should you order later? Where should you work from now—on the sofa or on the bed?
What party should you vote—wait, what?
No, don’t worry, we’re not saying that Polling Day is tomorrow.
Instead, you can now know if you can vote or not.
Reader Bao: Of course I can vote. Why can’t I?
Well, read on.
Elections Department Releases No. of Voters for General Elections Today (15 Apr)
Despite the Circuit Breaker period, it seems like the good folks in the Elections Department are still working hard, because the date of the next General Elections is as unpredictable as the number of new COVID-19 reported daily.
After all, even South Korea held its elections amidst the COVID-19 threat.
Today, the Elections Department announces that they’ve certified the registers of electors and they’re available for public inspection.
Now, simi is the registers of electors?
It’s basically a list of people who can vote.
If you’re like Reader Bao, you’d think that every Singaporean above the age of 21 can vote.
Well, that’s true, and voting is technically compulsory.
But if you’ve not voted in the previous election, you wouldn’t be able to vote in this election as your name would most probably not be in this latest registers of electors.
However, if you didn’t vote in the last election because your cat was sick and you needed to take care of it, you can still submit your name and reason here, and your name would be restored to the Registers of Electors.
And tad-da; you can then vote in the upcoming election.
But of course, your reason for not voting in the past election must be valid lah; if not, you’d need to pay $50 to restore your name.
So what’s considered a valid reason?
Here are a few examples based on the Elections Department website:
- Working overseas (including being on a business trip) at the time of the poll
- Studying overseas at the time of the poll
- Living with their spouse who is working or studying overseas
- Overseas vacation
- Illness, or delivering a baby
Therefore I’m not sure if taking care of a sick pet cat is considered a valid reason or not.
If you want to restore your name, you need to do so before the Writ for election is issued.
In a statement today, it’s mentioned that you can now check if you’re in the list or not, and also check your particulars there.
You can do so here, though you need to log in with SingPass.
Also, they’ve released the number of people who can vote in the upcoming elections: it’s 2,653,942, which is about 200K more than the previous General Elections, and about 59K more when the list was updated in April 2019.
So, the burning question is…
When Would the Election Be Held?
You might want to scroll up and be reminded that you’re reading Goody Feed—if we know, we’d not have been called a trashy publication by so many people.
However, it must be held before April 2021, and most importantly, if you think we can hold it online since even Shilin Night Market has gone online, you might want to watch this video:
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