JOHOR BAHRU, Sept 9 — The polling process for the Pulai and Simpang Jeram by-elections, which began at 8am today, ended at 6pm when all 61 polling centres were closed.
Following that, all the ballot boxes from 362 streams, involving 294 streams for the Pulai parliamentary constituency and 68 streams for the Simpang Jeram state seat, will be taken to two vote-tallying centres as early as 7.20pm, before the results are announced tonight.
The vote-tallying centre for the Pulai constituency is Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan Ibrahim here while that for Simpang Jeram is Dewan Jubli Intan Sultan Ibrahim in Muar.
Election Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Ghani Salleh said yesterday that the vote-tallying process was expected to be completed by as early as 8.30pm.
A total of 304 postal ballots were issued by the EC for the two by-elections.
About 90 per cent or 831 of the 927 early voters comprising police personnel cast their ballots on Tuesday (Sept 5).
According to the EC, there are 166,653 voters in Pulai and 40,379 voters in Simpang Jeram.
In Pulai, Pakatan Harapan (Harapan) candidate Suhaizan Kaiat is facing Zulkifli Jaafar of Perikatan Nasional (PN) and independent candidate Samsudin Mohamad Fauzi, while in Simpang Jeram, Harapans Nazri Abdul Rahman is taking on surgeon Dr Mohd Mazri Yahya of PN and independent candidate S. Jeganathan.
The two by-elections were held following the death of Amanah deputy president Datuk Seri Salahuddin Ayub on July 23.
Salahuddin had won Pulai with a majority of 33,174 votes and Simpang Jeram with a 2,399-vote majority.
— Bernama
