KUALA LUMPUR, July 6 — The voting process for the Sungai Bakap state legislative assembly by-election has concluded after all nine polling stations opened since 8am this morning officially closed at 6pm.

The polling centres were Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Tasek, Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC) Boon Beng, SMK Bandar Tasek Mutiara, Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Seri Tasek, SK Sungai Duri, SMK Tun Syed Sheh Barakbah, SK Sungai Bakap, SK Jawi, and SK Sungai Kechil.

Immediately after the polling stations closed, all ballot boxes from the 65 polling stations or streams were transported to the Official Vote Counting Centre at Dewan Serbaguna Jawi, Taman Desa Jawi here.

Earlier, the Election Commission (EC) received and opened the postal ballots for the by-election at 4pm before the counting process commenced at 5pm.

As of 4 pm, 57.7 percent of the 39,151 registered voters had fulfilled their duty to elect a new Sungai Bakap state assemblyman.

Overall, 39,279 registered voters were eligible to vote in the by-election, including 57 police personnel, although no early polling stations were opened despite the scheduled date on July 2 after the EC issued 128 postal ballots to eligible voters.

The Sungai Bakap state by-election was a head-to-head contest between Pakatan Harapan (PH) candidate Joohari Ariffin and Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate Abidin Ismail, following the death of incumbent Nor Zamri Latiff on May 24 due to abdominal inflammation.