KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 (Bernama) -- The Election Commission (EC) takes a serious view of Assistant Registrars (AR) of Voters who are negligent in carrying out their duties and will take firm action against them.

EC secretary Kamaruddin Mohamed Baria said up to January this year, EC had terminated the appointment of 332 ARs from various categories this year for negligence and infringement of the conditions of their appointment.

"Action has to be taken as the objective of the EC is to facilitate the members of the public to register as voters," he said in a statement here today.

From the monitoring by the EC on the registration of voters by ARs in the first quarter of 2012, several careless errors were spotted in the voter registration forms (Form A).

He said ARs were still registering names of registered voters again, registering those under 21 years old, registering non-citizens and voters who had a different address from the address found in the Agency Link-Up System (ALIS) at the National Registration Department.

"EC has also noticed ARs who registered names of voters with new addresses without the knowledge of the voters.

"This could be due to obtaining Form A and identity card copies from other sources and not from the applicants directly," he said.

He added that this was against the work procedure of voter registration.