‘Ghosts’ on voters list spell trouble for KPU

The Jakarta General Election Commission (KPU Jakarta) has again delayed the announcement of the final list of voters for the upcoming gubernatorial election to June 2 due to the abundant number of irregularities found in the preliminary list.

“This delay, however, will not affect other election schedules,” Aminullah, the poll body’s head of voter data collection, told reporters on Monday in Central Jakarta.

The KPU Jakarta earlier said that it would announce the final voter list on June 1 after a five-day delay from the planned schedule on May 26.

The commission delayed finalizing the voter list after various political parties and NGOs claimed that they had found around 900,000 to 1.4 million “ghost” or ineligible voters out of the 7,044,991 voters on the preliminary list.

Aminullah promised that the distribution of election logistics, such as ballots and ballot boxes, would still run as scheduled on July 1. The campaign schedule for the six running gubernatorial candidates would proceed from June 24 until July 7.

According to Aminullah, as of Monday the commission had identified around 9,000 “ghost”, or ineligible voters, and eliminated them from the list.

“The number of voters, therefore, tends to decline,” he said.

Characteristics of Jakartans who frequently moved from one place to another troubled the commission in finalizing the voter list, Aminullah said.

“Jakartans rarely re-register themselves when they move to new places in the city,” he said.

Many Jakartans, for example, argued that they had not been included in the preliminary voter list in their new places, while in fact, they had been registered as voters at their former residential areas, he said.

Therefore, duplicate voter entries would appear if they registered themselves at their new places of residence, he added.

KPU Jakarta chairwoman Dahliah Umar said that the commission would reject suggestions from various parties urging it to use data from Jakarta’s electronic identification (e-ID) card record. The latest data from the e-ID record shows that the number of Jakarta voters is only
5.6 million.

“How can we use the data if the recording is not finished yet? If you go to subdistrict offices now, you will see some people are still queuing for card registration,” she said.

Furthermore, she added, the number of voters in Jakarta might have been higher than the data. In the city’s election in 2007, the number of voters reached 5.7 million people.

“Therefore, rationally the number for this year’s voters should be higher,” she said, adding that many people who moved to Jakarta caused the expansion of the voter list.

The poll body chairwoman also said that the commission would not allow anyone to vote on polling stations on the scheduled election day of July 11 by only showing their identification cards.

The six pairs of candidates running in the election are incumbent Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo and running mate Nachrowi Ramli, Hidayat Nur Wahid and economist Didik J. Rachbini, Surakarta Mayor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, South Sumatra Governor Alex Noerdin and Nono Sampono, Faisal Basri and Biem Benjamin, and Hendardji Soepandji and Ahmad Riza Patria.

A candidate is required to garner at least 50 percent of the total vote plus one to win the election. If this condition is not met, the two candidates with the most votes will face off for the second round. (riz)