Voter Registration
Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore
Voters registering to be included in the Electoral Roll at an Electoral Registration Centre, 1950.
Elections were first conducted in Singapore in 1948. Despite the introduction of elections, there were restrictions on eligibility to be included in the Electoral Roll. For instance, only British subjects, who had lived in Singapore for at least a year, were eligible to stand for election and to vote. In reality, many people were born outside Singapore. Thus, they were not British subjects and were not eligible.
Moreover, eligible voters are required to register themselves to vote in an election. Coupled with the lack of voter awareness and education, voter registration was low. The English-educated public tended to be more politically conscious of what was going on and were more likely to register as voters. This situation continued into the second Legislative Council election of 1951 which saw only 52% of the 48,155 eligible voters cast their ballots.
Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore
Members of the public checking the Electoral Roll at the General Post Office, 1954.
In the case of Municipal Commission elections, only property owners were eligible to vote and this effectively disqualified many women even though they were British subjects. The property requirements for voting in the Municipal Commission Elections were dropped in 1950.
Poor voter registration and turnout were mitigated with the recommendation to introduce automatic registration in 1954.
