On Friday afternoon, Singapore's Elections Department (ELD) dropped an announcement that they have reported three parties to the police for allegedly violating cooling-off day restrictions.

These rules, in case you're not familiar, state the following:

Essentially, if you're a website that isn't the mainstream media, you should not be posting anything that could indicate that you are advocating any candidates in an election on cooling-off day — in this case, that was Friday May 6, a day before the Bukit Batok by-election polling day (May 7).

We'll show you the posts that allegedly violate these rules, posted by The Independent Singapore, former Singapore Democratic Party candidate and former Internal Security Act detainee Teo Soh Lung, as well as blogger Roy Ngerng:

By The Independent Singapore:

On May 6, at 1:41am:

Same day, just after 8pm:

And they also published one article, which was not shared on Facebook, on Polling Day itself:

Posts by Teo Soh Lung:

On May 6 at 2:16am, she commented on unequal airtime given to the PAP's Murali Pillai and the SDP's Chee Soon Juan:

Later in the morning, at roughly 7:15am:

Shortly after, she followed up with another at about 7:30am:

And then, at 7:45am, she shared a transcript of SDP member Paul Tambyah's final rally speech:

She has confirmed with Mothership.sg that she has "a long time ago" resigned from the party, though. So these posts would've been in her own personal capacity, not as that of a party member.

Posts by Roy Ngerng:

On May 6 at 2:08pm:

Sometime later that day, Ngerng posted this on his blog:

On filing the police reports, the Elections Department said the following:

"In filing the police reports, the Assistant Returning Officer has taken into consideration the nature of the postings and the potential impact that they might have had. Socio-political sites such as TISG that regularly promote, propagate and discuss political issues should be accountable and responsible for what they publish. Not only did TISG publish articles that may be tantamount to election advertising on Cooling-Off Day, it continued to do so even after receiving a specific reminder from the ARO not to post any election advertising during Cooling-Off Day and Polling Day. The two individuals – Teo Soh Lung and Roy Ngerng – also regularly engage in the propagation, promotion and discussion of political issues.

Posting election advertising on Cooling-Off Day and Polling Day is an offence under Section 78B(1) of the Parliamentary Elections Act. Any person who is convicted of such an offence may be fined up to $1,000 and/or jailed up to 12 months."

Previous police report in relation to this by-eleciton

On May 6, the Media Development Authority (MDA) filed a police report against The Middle Ground for its article "BB BE: 50 voters in Bukit Batok" which supposedly contravened Section 78C (1) of the Parliamentary Elections Act on polling. MDA had told TMG to take the article down.

TMG complied and wrote several articles detailing the take down process.

Top photo: Screenshot from The Independent Singapore.

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