Results in Overseas Polls for GE2020 Show Different Results & WP ‘Won’ East Coast GRC Instead

If ELD has used the overseas poll results as sample counts last Friday night, everyone would have stayed up till 4am just to watch the final results.

But if you’ve downloaded our app and read the article about sample counts, you’d know that the sample counts don’t just depend on numbers but on the setting as well, so technically, those overseas votes, even if they’re in the hundreds, don’t represent the vote share accurately.

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to know how overseas voters vote, because Parliament would look very different if we only take overseas votes as the valid count.

So how different is it?

Results in Overseas Poll for GE2020 Show Different Results

For a start, the turnout for the overseas votes is only 72.3%—in comparison, it’s 95.63% in local votes.

Do note that for this year’s election, there’s a glitch in the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s system, whereby 101 registered overseas voters weren’t able to vote due to the error.

Still, there were 6,570 registered voters, and 4,794 did their civic duty by heading to the polling stations in 10 cities: Beijing, Canberra, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai, Tokyo and Washington.

Of the total votes, there were 50 rejected votes. God knows why they travelled all the way to draw turtles.

The local votes, which are of course enough for the results to be confirmed, led to PAP winning 83 seats while WP won 10 seats.

But if overseas voters determine the fate of Singapore, then PAP will only win 75 seats.

SDP would have 1 seat, PSP would have won 6 seats and WP would have won 10 seats.

There’s a tie in Yio Chu Kang SMC, so that could go either way—either to PAP or PSP.

The “Swing” That’s Not in Our Tiny Little Island

So, how different do overseas voters vote?

For a start, most constituencies mirror the local results except these places.

In Bukit Panjang SMC, PAP’s Liang Eng Hwa won SDP’s Paul Tambyah with a difference of 2,514 votes, or 7.48%. Outside our little red dot, SDP won with 20 votes against PAP’s 15 votes. If that has been the case, we would’ve finally had SDP in Parliament.

The second difference is in the hotly contested East Coast GRC. DPM Heng’s plan might not have worked for overseas voters, because while PAP won the seat with local votes through 61,009 votes against WP’s 53,228 votes, the results overseas are different: Nicole Seah’s team “won” with 147 votes against PAP’s 135 votes. Yes, the close fight occurred both locally and globally.

The third difference is something you might not have expected: Kebun Baru SMC. It’s a “new” SMC that’s carved out from Nee Soon GRC, but it has existed from 1980 to 1991. The SMC is contested by PAP’s Henry Kwek, who was once an MP for Nee Soon GRC, and PSP’s Kumaran Pillai. PAP won with a whopping 62.97% of the vote share locally, but overseas results would’ve shocked even the cats in Yishun: 30 out of 55 people voted for PSP. That’s unexpected since it’s not considered a constituency that people are looking at.

Instead, people are watching the next constituency: West Coast GRC.

This GRC is so closely fought that the opposition party got the best losing results from the whole GE, which led to 2 NCMP seats offered to them. It comprises a PAP team helmed by two ministers and an A-team from PSP that includes Dr Tan Cheng Bock. PSP lost with 48.31% of the local votes. Overseas voters, however, prefer the good old doctor, with 125 votes for them while 113 voted for PAP.

The other closely watched GRC, Sengkang GRC, has a surprise result, too. Unless you live in a cave, you’d know that J stands for Jamus, and Jamus has hand-carried or hard-carried or heart-carried the WP team into Parliament with 52.12% of the votes. That’s not the case for overseas voters: instead, 105 out of 186 voters opted for the ruling party.

The last difference is Yio Chu Kang SMC—another constituency that you might not even know exist. But unlike other constituencies (except one with a war cry), this constituency has a new PAP face going alone in a new SMC. PAP’s Yip Hon Weng managed to outdo PSP’s Kayla Low with 60.83% of votes. That result isn’t mirrored in overseas polling stations as both the candidates received 19 votes each. In other words, it’s a draw—something that won’t happen locally, of course.

There should also be an honourable mention: over in Bukit Batok SMC, whereby SDP’s head Dr Chee Soon Juan went for a rematch with PAP’s Murali Pillai. PAP won with 54.8% of the votes, but that’s a drop from the by-election in 2016 when he won with 61.23%. In overseas polls, Dr Chee nearly won; he had 23 votes while Ah Mu has 24 votes.

Now, while these numbers are interesting to know, they do not represent Singapore. Some of them might have been overseas so long that they thought Dr Tan Cheng Bock is still with the PAP #justsaying

So take it with a pinch of salt, though I know what you’re thinking: What’d really happen if a draw does occur?

Well, I’ve done the homework for you and the answer is…Google doesn’t have the answer. But if that really happens in a local vote, you can bet that we’re all going to sleep at 6am instead of 4am on the day after polling day.

And on a side note, politicians have been talking about NCMP (Non-Constituency Member of Parliament) in recent days. So, what’s an NCMP? Do you know that it’s just like an MP but the allowance is much lower? Watch this video to find out more: