Population Administration and the Voters’ List

KOMPAS/MAHDI MUHAMMAD

Staffers of the Home Ministry’s population and civil registration directorate general clip damaged e-ID cards on May 5, 2018 at the ministry’s warehouse in Semplak, Bogor regency, West java. The ministry has proposed to destroy up to 800,000 damaged e-ID cards.

Nowadays, there are at least three public policies on population administration that may hinder citizens from exercising their voting rights.

The three public policies pertain to three separate sets of voters. First, more than five million would be first time voters that will reach 17 years of age between Jan. 1 and April 17, 2019, may not be able to vote as they will need to obtain their electronic ID cards (e-KTP). Citizens are only eligible to get e-KTPs once they are 17 years old.

Second, there are six million voters aged 23 years old and above without e-KTPs. Third, citizens residing in forest areas (including members of customary law communities) and those living in disputed lands (such as farmlands) remain ineligible for e-KTPs.

If these problems remain unresolved, we may see a repeat of the bad memories of the 2009 general election, which remains the most poorly managed election of the Reform Era. During the 2009 election, a significant number of eligible voters were unregistered on the voters’ list. Some studies found that the figure reached 10-15 percent of all eligible voters.

When I served as an expert witness before the House of Representatives’ inquiry committee into the possible violation of voters’ constitutional rights in 2009, I said that there were two reasons behind the poor management of the 2009 election’s voters’ list. One was Law No. 10/2008 on legislative elections, which stipulated that citizens should use their unique ID number (NIK) to register to vote.

This is despite the fact that in 2007 and 2008 Indonesia had just started to implement its population administration policy of requiring citizens to have a NIK as a basis for receiving an e-KTP. At the time, the number of citizens aged 17 years and older without NIKs was still significant.

The three problems above occurred because the government and the House saw two separate and entirely different things at the same. The voters’ list is not the same as and should not be seen as identical to the registry of citizens with NIK/KTPs. The registry is merely a manifestation of the government’s population administration policy, similar to how every family must own a family card (KK) and how every citizen aged 17 years and older must have an e-KTP.

Furthermore, there are also bans on providing KK and KTP to citizens living on land belonging to other persons or businesses or on disputed lands. The government (in this case the Home Ministry) is tasked with carrying out policies on population administration. KKs and KTPs will only be given to citizens fulfilling the requirement.

Voting as human right

The final voters’ list (DPT) is the end product of a process of registering and updating the voters’ list. Citizens included on the DPT can exercise their voting rights. Voting is a human right and a citizen’s political right. As it is a human right, the requirement for a citizen to vote is very simple, namely that he or she is 17 years old or above, or has married, on voting day.

Based on Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) data, the political rights of 35 politicians were revoked – as part of the punishment for their corruption convictions – between 2013 and 2018. Only their right to be voted for was revoked for a certain period of time after their incarceration (Kompas, 19/9/2018). Their right to vote remains intact.

Based on Indonesia’s population administration policy, citizens who have yet to be found guilty – if they are, for instance, in the middle of a residence-related land dispute legal proceeding – are not eligible to receive a KTP.

As the right to vote is a human right, convicts spending time behind bars remain eligible to vote. As the right to vote is a human right and citizens 17 years old and above or having married are eligible to vote, then first time voters should be registered as voters who are eligible to exercise their voting rights. Population administration requirements must not hinder citizens from voting. Not even courts can revoke a person’s right to vote. Then, why are population administration policies limiting citizens’ rights to vote, when voting is a human right?

If so, what should the relationship between population administration policies and the fulfillment of voting rights as a human right look like? If voters are required to have a NIK or e-KTP to vote, then is the state limiting citizens’ voting rights? Article 28J of the 1945 Constitution allows the regulation of human rights as long as it does not impose limitations and ensures the granting of said human rights for all citizens.

No limitations

Population administration policies should not limit human rights and should support the exercise of voting rights. The potential voter lists (DP4), which the Home Ministry submits to the General Elections Commission (KPU), the provincial government submits to the provincial KPU and the regency/city government submits to the regency/city KPU, is a form of the government’s support for election organizers, as long as the KPU is not required to use it. The KPU may compile its own provisional voters’ list (DPS) based on the final voters’ list of the last election and then compare it to the government’s DP4.

Based on the bad experiences surrounding the voters’ list during the 2009 election, the House and the government should guarantee the voting rights of all eligible voters. This is stipulated in Article 40 Point (5) of Law No. 8/2012 on legislative elections. In the 2014 election, voters without NIK or e-KTPs could still exercise their voting rights. The Article 40 Point (5) mandates provincial KPUs to register voters unlisted in the DPT or DPS due to the absence of their population ID on the special voters’ list. Such a stipulation is no longer found in Law No. 7/2017 on elections.

As the right to vote is a human right, all eligible voters will need to be registered on the DPT. Population administration policies that hinder citizens from voting should be reviewed on the foundation of higher principles of human rights and equality among citizens. The KPU as election organizer is required to take the necessary steps to uphold citizens’ voting rights and ensure equality among citizens. One example is by issuing official notices, as the KPU did for the recent simultaneous regional election. (RAMLAN SURBAKTI, Professor of comparative politics, school of social and political sciences, Airlangga University, Surabaya; member of Indonesian Academy of Sciences)