JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The General Elections Commission is preparing technical and logistical arrangements for revoting or additional voting in the 2019 elections in a number of regions.
Although this issue will not affect the results nationally, this incident must serve as a lesson for the election organizers. Such evaluation is important to guarantee the improvement of services and protection of voter rights in the future.
Based on KPU data on the midnight of April 17, the voting will be held at 2,249 polling stations (TPS) in 18 regencies and cities. This is due to logistics delays or natural disasters. The number is around 0.28 percent of the total 810,193 polling stations in the 2019 elections.
KPU member Ilham Saputra said in Jakarta on Friday (4/19/2019) the KPU was compiling overall data on the locations of polling stations throughout Indonesia that can hold post-election voting. This measure is being taken following recommendations from the Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu).
Titi Anggraini, executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), said the simultaneous legislative and presidential elections created delays in logistics delivery or ballot paper mix-ups.
“As people are facing elections after elections and they want a better standard, the elections organizers should have developed better planning […] on the field,” said Titi.
Titi emphasized that even though there were problems that would led to revoting or additional voting, it could not be said that the overall elections were not chaotic.
Regional preparation
In a number of regions, local KPU branches are preparing for revoting. In Central Java, for example, revoting will be conducted at six polling stations in five regencies and cities. This is being done as Bawaslu found cases of illegitimate voting and vote counting at the polling stations.
“There are several factors that lead to revoting. In Tegal regency, for example, there are people who can vote even though they have no right to vote. While in Jepara regency, the voting and vote counting process were not attended by the chairman of the polling station committee [KPPS]. This automatically makes the voting and vote counting invalid,” said KPU Central Java member Ikhwanuddin said.
In West Nusa Tenggara, there are three polling stations that will undergo revoting. KPU West Nusa Tenggara chairman Suhardi Soud said that, in Mataram, the revoting will be conducted no later than 10 days after April 17.
“At polling stations with no case of revoting, the vote recapitulation will continue so that there will be no delay,” he said.
In West Kalimantan, the local Bawaslu recommended that revoting be conducted at seven polling stations, as there were several polling stations there that did not provide presidential candidate and Regional Representatives Council (DPD) ballots and there were cases in which someone cast ballots on behalf of others.
West Kalimantan Bawaslu member, Faisal Riza revealed that the seven polling stations were in Sintang, Melawi and Kapuas Hulu regencies. The revoting recommendations at those polling stations were submitted to the KPU West Kalimantan.
In addition to the seven polling stations, there are also other polling stations that may have to conduct revoting. In Bengkayang regency, there are two potential polling stations that may havev to conduct a revote due to a shortage of DPD ballots. Then, there is a case of a person who was not listed on the final voters list, but he exercised his voting rights using his e-ID at the incorrect polling station. A polling station committee (KPPS) allowed the person to vote anyway. (INK/XTI/ESA/RUL)