Pressured by huge demonstrations for free and fair polls in recent years, the country's long-ruling government is introducing indelible ink in Sunday's vote, the first in history in which the opposition has a chance of winning power.
But reports have mounted that security personnel who took part in early voting had easily been able to clean off the ink, which is applied to a person's finger to show they had voted and is supposed to remain visible for at least a week.
"(The Election Commission) should immediately address this problem. Otherwise it will be a black mark on the commission and undermine the public confidence in the results."
The Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition that has ruled since independence in 1957 has been under pressure over charges it sought to manipulate the vote through an allegedly biased electoral system.
The opposition has claimed that electoral rolls in some closely fought constituencies contain huge numbers of unaccounted-for voters and say the government has dragged its feet on addressing such issues.
But commission officials appeared to acknowledge today that the ink system was not foolproof. Commission secretary Kamaruddin Baria said some officials had failed to shake the bottles before applying the ink, meaning it could be washed off.
"This is the first time (the ink is used). I cannot guarantee anything," he told AFP, but added that he was "confident" the commission had cleaned up the electoral roll and there would be no multiple voting or other irregularities.
Maria Chin Abdullah, a member of electoral reform group Bersih, said the ink flap "reconfirms our fear" that the government was resisting reforms to stamp out alleged cheating.
Hard-fought campaigning officially got under way on April 20, and police have said more than 1,000 reports of election violence and intimidation have been made. No deaths have yet been announced.
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