32 Percent Voter Turnout As At Noon

PUTRAJAYA, March 8 (Bernama) -- About 32 percent of the 10.9 million voters have cast their votes nationwide as at noon Saturday, Election Commission (EC) Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said.
He told a press conference at the EC headquarters here, that the voting process was progressing smoothly nationwide, except at three locations in Huju Rajang, Sarawak, after a boat carrying election workers capsized due to strong river current.
Abdul Rashid said the mobile voting process at the three locations in the Hulu Rajang parliamentary constituency had to be postponed to Sunday.
He said that one of the locations involved the Uma Sekapan Piit long house with 110 voters and the other two locations were at Uma Balo Kasing Long Amo.
Abdul Rashid said a team of six election workers were on their way to Uma Balo Kasing Long Amo after the completion of voting process at Uma Sekapan Piit when the boat capsized.
"The incident caused all the ballot papers, including the ones for Uma Sekapan Piit where the voting has been completed, to be soaked and could not be salvaged.
"As a result of that, the EC has decided to postpone the voting process at the three locations to tomorrow to a time to be fixed later," he added.
According to information received from the states, about 30 percent voters had turned up to cast their votes in Sabah and also in Kelantan.
In Penang, 25.25 percent of the total 709,322 voters in the state have cast their votes at the 303 voting centres as at noon, said state EC deputy director, Ilyani Farha Mohammad.
Meanwhile, Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan said that the security situation at all polling centres was under control, except for some minor incidents in Terengganu where several people had been arrested for questioning.
"I have issued stern warning to those creating trouble," he told Bernama

AS AT 3PM, 58% turnout