Malaysia goes to the polls on Nov 19

The 15th parliamentary elections will take place on Nov 19 (Saturday).

The nomination day has been set for Nov 5. The campaigning period will last 14 days. Early voting will take place on Nov 15.

Are you a first time voter? Check out our GE15 guide

Elections for the Perlis, Perak, and Pahang legislative assemblies and the Bugaya by-election will follow the above dates.

The 14-day campaigning period was consistent with those set for recent state elections in Johor, Sarawak, Malacca, and Sabah.

Election Commission chairperson Abdul Ghani Salleh at a press conference in Putrajaya announced the key dates decided during its meeting today.

Unlike previous press conferences, the EC chief this time did not take any questions from journalists.

"The EC has received official notification from the Dewan Rakyat speaker on Oct 11 over the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's declaration on the dissolution of the 14th Dewan Rakyat term.

"The EC also received notice of dissolution for three state assemblies - Pahang and Perlis on Oct 14, and Perak on Oct 17 - from its respective state assembly speakers," said Ghani.

He said Sabah state assembly speaker Kadzim Md Yahya has also notified the EC on Oct 12 over the lifting of an emergency proclamation in N66 Bugaya.

In total, GE15 will see contests in 222 parliamentary seats, 42 state seats in Pahang, 15 state seats in Perlis, 59 state seats in Perak and one state seat in Sabah.

Postal vote deadlines

For postal ballots, Ghani announced that applications for overseas postal voters, which have been open since Oct 10, will be closed on Oct 23.

Meanwhile, domestic postal voters applications from election staff/EC officers, police, armed forces personnel and media will be closed on Nov 2; and voters from agency/organisation will have until Oct 26.

GE15 and the Bugaya by-election will see the appointment of 363,515 EC officers, and the campaign process will be monitored by 625 EC enforcement teams that also comprise police, local council officers and representatives for the candidates.

In total there will be 8,958 ordinary polling centres with 38,348 voting streams, as well as 578 early voting centres.

The latest gazetted electoral roll in use has been updated up to Oct 9 with 21,173,638 voters, comprising 20,905,366 ordinary voters, 146,737 armed forces personnel and spouse; 118,794 police personnel and spouse; as well as 2,741 absentee overseas voters.

This is up by 41.7 percent from the 2018 election. This was due to the automatic registration of anyone above the age of 18 as a voter.

All voters are encouraged to inspect their voting details on the Election Commission’s website.

Less seats up for grabs

This is the first time in Malaysian history whereby most states will be sitting out of the general election.

Therefore, only 117 state assembly seats will be decided on Nov 19, down from 576 during the last election in 2018.

The states of Sabah, Sarawak, Johor and Malacca did not dissolve their legislative assemblies owing to the fact that none of their terms even reached the halfway mark.

Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan and Penang have opted not to dissolve their legislatures for now as a mark of protest against caretaker prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob's decision to force an election during the monsoon season.