New young voters afraid to vote due to lack of information on election

SHAH ALAM - New young voters might be afraid to go out and cast their votes in the Johor state election as they do not know how elections work.

Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) vice president Dr Thanussha Francis Xavier said this might be due to the lack of exposure to details regarding the voting process, noting that they were also first timers.

“Some of the feedbacks we got are that new voters, especially the young ones, are actually a bit scared to vote because it is an unknown process to them.

“They have no idea how the process works and there were no explanations given to them or videos that they could watch to familiarise themselves with the process,” she said during the Wacana English Edition entitled "Johor Polls: Emergence of A New Power?", last night.

Thanussha said the new young voters' lack of exposure to the election process has encouraged Muda to organise engagement programmes to walk them through it.

She said the young voters' concern has more to do with the fear of the unknown in the sense that they were contemplating on who to vote for and the consequences that might come with it.

“They might think, how should they decide and what should be the criteria in deciding and when they pose those questions to us, only then we are able to understand.

“So, we are here telling them to come and vote, but how much have we actually done to address their concerns and fears to vote,” she said.

She also said she could foresee challenges in the state election as it would be difficult with the pandemic and timing of the election itself.

This, she said would also be difficult as not all voters live in Johor as some worked in Singapore and it would not be easy for them to come to the state and vote.

"Not sure if that was intentional, with it being so soon after the Chinese New Year . Not everyone (Johoreans) live in Johor," she said.