We thank Mr Dennis Tan Seow Koon for his feedback (What happened to efficiency of past elections?, July 13).

We have listened to the feedback of voters on Polling Day itself and since then, and would like to deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused, especially to our senior voters.

We acknowledge that the new measures we had put in place for Polling Day to protect the health and safety of voters, candidates and election officials had reduced the efficiency voters were used to in previous elections.

We will conduct a thorough review to understand what went wrong and why it happened, especially at some polling stations.

We made adjustments to our processes on Polling Day without compromising voter safety. For example, putting on disposable gloves was adding significantly to the time a voter spent at the polling station and contributed to the long queues. Therefore, we did away with the need to don disposable gloves since voters would have sanitised their hands a few times.

Subsequently, the queue situation did improve in many polling stations, and voters had a smooth voting experience. By 2pm, 70 per cent of the polling stations had queues of fewer than 20 voters. But despite our best efforts, a number of polling stations continued to see long queues. We will also study why this was the case, and draw lessons for all polling stations in future.

We also acknowledge the feedback about the difficulties voters had with the layout of specific polling stations and will certainly take this into account for the future. We will definitely pay special attention to the needs of senior voters and make their voting experience a smooth and comfortable one. We thank the public once again for their patience and understanding.

Koh Siong Ling

Head, Elections Department

Prime Minister's Office