"This can include planning and adopting robust absentee voting mechanisms to reduce voter movement, such as postal voting and advance voting.

"Other things to make voting safer include holding campaigns online, with equal time to be given to each political party to speak on state or national television and radio," she said on Wednesday (May 26).

Teo also expressed concern over the concentration of power in the executive during the Emergency as the state legislature's sittings were suspended.

"If the present government continues to be in power until such a time as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong says that the state assembly is dissolved, we are looking at an extended term of government without accountability as there is no legislative sitting," she said.

Simon Siah from Lawyer Kamek for Change concurred that the EC must come up with extensive SOP for the election, such as no house-to-house campaigning or public ceramah, putting in place postal voting for Sarawakians staying in Peninsular Malaysia or Sabah, and staggering voting hours.

"In my opinion, the democratic process must continue with proper SOP put in place.

"This has been done in other countries such as Singapore, the United States and Britain," he said.

Siah also cautioned that prolonging the Emergency would give the ruling coalition "unfettered powers" over the state.

"We are currently unable to project what the situation will be in the next few months or even years.

"The Emergency can be extended using the convenient reason that cases are still high," he said, adding that more robust measures were needed to counter the spread of Covid-19.