SINGAPOREANS are advised to head to their designated polling stations throughout the day on Friday (Sep 1), as there were long queues at some polling stations in the morning.

In an update on Friday, the Elections Department (ELD) said that the queue has improved at most polling stations.

Long queues formed at polling stations islandwide before they opened at 8.00 am.

There was a queue of about 100 at a polling station at the void deck of Block 307 Jurong East Street 32.

Over at Yangzheng Primary School in Serangoon, there were about 41 to 60 voters as of 8.10 am.

About 200 people were queueing at Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School at around 9.00 am.

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

Other polling stations with long queues were at Toa Payoh, Anderson Serangoon Junior College, Katong Community Centre and Block 533 Pasir Ris Drive 1.

Earlier on Friday, the ELD had advised voters to cast their votes in the afternoon “when the queues are usually shorter”.

“We seek voters’ patience and understanding as we clear the morning queue,” it said then.

The Straits Times also understands that e-registration was down at some polling stations, such as Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Secondary School, Block 9 Toh Yi Drive, and the Ministry of Education headquarters in Balestier.

The ELD said that technical issues with the e-registration system are progressively being resolved. It did not elaborate further.

Some voters said they had queued for at least 40 minutes and cited issues with the voter registration system.

One of them was Chloe Woon, 38, who arrived at 8am at Yangzheng Primary School. Woon, who works in the communications field, said she had to queue for about 40 minutes before being able to cast her vote.

She said election officials were also directing the elderly to a separate queue.

At Katong Community Centre, a voter who wanted to be known as Neo took about 45 minutes at the polling station.

The homemaker, who is in her 50s, said: “The machines took very long to scan my IC, and there was a long queue because there were only two machines.” THE STRAITS TIMES