The eleventh Sarawak state election was held on Saturday, 7 May 2016 after nomination for candidates on Monday, 25 April 2016. The 82 members of the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly, were elected in single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting. More than 1.1 million who had their names entered or retained in an electoral register for a particular electoral district in Sarawak was eligible to vote at the time of the election. Malaysia does not practice compulsory voting and automatic voter registration. The voting age is 21 although the age of majority in the country is 18. The election was conducted by the Election Commission of Malaysia. The Sarawak State Legislative Assembly would automatically dissolve on 20 June 2016, the fifth anniversary of the first sitting, and elections must be held within sixty days of the dissolution (on or before 19 August 2016, with the date to be decided by the Election Commission), unless dissolved prior to that date by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri of Sarawak on the advice of the Chief Minister of Sarawak. The previous state election was held at 2011. The state assemblymen is elected to 5 years term each. It is expected to be the most hotly contested election in Sarawak's poll history. At the previous election, the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat made historic gains by doubling its State Assembly seats, while the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional retained a two-thirds majority. The incumbent Chief Minister Adenan Satem first announced the election during a party branch meeting on 29 January, speculating 18 April as the nomination day and 30 April as election day. However, Adenan said the final decision was up to the Election Commission. On 14 April, the Election Commission announced that the election will be held on 7 May, with 12 days of campaigning and the nomination day set on 25 April. The legislative assembly was dissolved on Monday, 11 April. Timeline Proposed Sarawak electoral districts A proposal by the Election Commission to increase the number of state seats from 71 to 82 was challenged in the High Court and nullified. However this was overturned by the Court of Appeal reasoning that the increase in seats would not breach voters' constitutional rights and was in accordance with the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution. The composition of seats by ethnic majority consists of 22 Dayak-Iban majority seats, 17 Muslim-Malay majority seats, 16 Chinese-majority seats, 9 Melanau-majority seats,