JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The Home Ministry has asked all population and civil registry agencies in the 101 regions that will hold regional elections on Feb. 15 to actively look for voters who are not yet registered. Their data should be available on the General Election Commission’s match and research official report from when the commission updated the voter list.
Therefore, the Home Ministry’s Directorate General of Regional Autonomy Soni Sumarsono on Thursday (2/2) in Jakarta asked the population and civil registry agencies in the 101 regions to coordinate with the local General Elections Commission (KPU) and request the report. The location of unregistered voters could be identified using the report.
“Then, the population and civil registry agencies must be active, proactive, find these potential voters. If, after being checked, they have the right to vote, a letter of reference will immediately be issued. With this letter, they can use their right to vote in the election on Feb. 15,” he said.
The acting Jakarta governor gave an example of what he had implemented in Jakarta. As he started his time in office, in October 2016, he received a report that there were still around 100,000 potential voters that had not yet registered. He instructed his staff to approach them at their home addresses, carry out verification, then, if they turned out to be eligible, the population and civil registry agency could issue a letter of reference.
The Jakarta administration also made efforts to facilitate people whose data had not been recorded on the voter list by opening up a service that assisted people to obtain a letter of reference at sub-district and district offices. “Therefore, they do not need to go all the way to the population and civil registry agency,” Sumarsono said.
As a result, there are now only 5,756 potential voters that have not yet been registered. “These are the ones we are trying to find. It is not easy to find them; they might have moved,” he said.
On this matter, Jakarta Population and Civil Registry Agency head Edison Sianturi asked the people of Jakarta to check the final voter list that had been determined by the Jakarta KPU and was displayed in sub-district offices. “Those who are not yet registered should report to the sub-district population and civil registry agency so they can be checked on the population database. Then they can register their data to obtain a letter of domicile. If their data is not recorded, the domicile letter cannot be issued,” he said.
The most recent data, Sianturi said, would soon be reported to the Jakarta KPU.
Separately, Pirhadi, head of the population and civil registry agency in Tulang Bawang regency, Lampung, said that the population data recording process in his regency had been hampered by broken equipment.
“At the moment, the photo equipment in three districts is broken and two data recording pieces in two other districts are missing,” he said.
In Tulang Bawang, there are 5,907 people who are not on population data and are therefore in danger of not being able to vote on Feb. 15.
KPU report
Based on KPU data, there are still 89,136 people whose identity needs to be verified by the Home Ministry. This number was reported by the KPU for regions set to participate in the 2017 regional elections. These residents have not been included on the voter list because they do not have an electronic identity card (e-KTP), a letter of reference from the population and civil registry agency and are not included on the potential voter list (DP4) issued by the Home Ministry to the KPU, however, they had the right to vote.
“We don’t know whether or not they are in the bigger population data [population administration information system]. We asked the government,” said KPU commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay.
According to Hadar, the report from the regional KPUs had been sent to the Home Ministry last week. The Home Ministry only needed to follow up with the regional population and civil registry agencies and coordinate with the local KPUs.
If data verification could be done quickly, the names of those with the right to vote could be immediately included on the supplementary final voter list on the recommendation of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu). This was important to ensure that there were sufficient ballots at every polling station. The KPU was concerned that logistics may be insufficient should there be an accumulation of unregistered voters at certain polling stations as the number of ballots at every polling station was only 2.5 percent of the total number of voters registered at each polling station.
Security
The police will ban all mass demonstrations during the 2017 regional election cooling-off period from Feb. 12-14.
“We urge the people to not carry out acts that disturb others, especially during the cooling-off period,” said National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar.
According to Boy, the national police had coordinated with the KPU and Bawaslu to ensure that peace in the cooling-off period was not disrupted by any party. He hoped that all parties contributed to actualizing peace ahead of and during the 2017 regional elections.
As many as 200 personnel from South Sulawesi Police have been sent to West Sulawesi to help secure the regional election in the region and are now in West Sulawesi. Meanwhile, to help secure the regional election in Aceh, the West Sumatera Police have sent 90 mobile brigade (Brimob) personnel to the province.
(SAN/APA/GAL/AGE/IRE/HLN/VIO/WAD/REN/ZAK/WER/BAY/ESA/NTA/MKN)
