Poll supervisor lists 12 violations

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The Jakarta branch of the Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu Jakarta) has announced that it found 12 types of violations committed by polling station committees during last week’s election.

Ramdansyah, the supervisory body chairman, said that most violations they found were related to failure to provide assistance or facilities for disabled voters, issuing more than one ballot to a voter and failure to display a voter roll.

“We will report this to the Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPU Jakarta). We don’t want these violations being repeated in the runoff,” Ramdansyah told reporters at his office in Central Jakarta.

He said Panwaslu Jakarta deployed volunteers to 900 polling stations out of the total of 15,059 across the capital during last Wednesday’s election.

Ramdansyah explained that the monitoring volunteers were given a checklist as a guide to record any violations.

The poll supervisor chairman also reported that as of Wednesday Panwaslu Jakarta had received reports of violations from 200 citizens.

“Most of the reports of alleged election irregularities we received were related to troubles with the voters’ roll. Many reported that they weren’t listed as eligible voters, despite having proper identification documents,” Ramdansyah said.

Other reports Panwaslu Jakarta received were allegations of dirty campaigning, money politics and voter intimidation. There were also reports of election organizing committee members not being neutral.

“We will study and clarify the reports. Administrative violations will be reported to the KPU Jakarta, while criminal violations will be reported to the police,” Ramdansyah said.

He added that he would file reports related to the voters’ list before July 23.

Separately, Aminullah, one of KPU Jakarta’s five commissioners, said that the poll organizing body had yet to receive a letter from the central KPU regarding further revisions to the final voters’ list.

“We are still waiting for a decision from the central commission,” Aminullah said.

The electoral commission had decided to revise the final list of voters less than 48 hours prior to the polling day.

In the revision, KPU Jakarta announced that it would eliminate 21,344 ineligible voters, referred to by some as “ghost voters”, from the list of 6,983,692 voters that had been announced in early June.

The poll body was forced to make the revision after the Election Organizers Ethics Council (DKPP) meted out sanctions to the poll body in early July.

If approved, the poll body will use a new voters’ list for the runoff.

Preliminary results have confirmed that out-of-towner Joko “Jokowi” Widodo led the vote count in the election and will face incumbent Governor Fauzi Bowo in the runoff in September.

KPU Jakarta is planning to begin runoff preparations on July 23, with the first step to be taken being the procurement of election logistics, including ballots and election ink.

12 types of violations found by Panwaslu

1. No assistance or facilities for disabled voters
2. Polling station staff issuing more than one ballot to a voter
3. No display of voters’ roll at polling station
4. Ballots not signed by at least two committee members
5. Polling booth difficult to access by disabled voters
6. Committee members’ failure to report all election logistics at the end of polling day
7. No announcement of election result
8. No oath taken by committee members before election
9. Candidate promotional material on display around polling station
10. Improper voter recording
11. Failure to maintain secrecy of ballot
12. Failure to properly seal ballot boxes