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Bribes, wrong ballot papers distract voters
Reports of bribery and incorrect ballot papers in Wednesdayâs legislative election continued to dominate media reports on Thursday
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eports of bribery and incorrect ballot papers in Wednesday's legislative election continued to dominate media reports on Thursday.
The Semarang Elections Supervisory Committee (Panwaslu) said on Thursday that it was investigating at least 16 vote-buying cases that reportedly took place before and during the April 9 election.
Panwaslu head Sri Wahyu Ananingsih said 10 cases had been reported by local residents and the remaining six were spotted by Panwaslu members during the cooling-off period and on election day.
'We have recorded statements by several witnesses and collected supporting evidence, including insurance cards, money and sembako [staple foodstuff] packages,' she said.
'We will immediately summon the alleged vote-buying perpetrators, witnesses and lawmaker candidates whose names were on the sembako packages.'
In Riau, voters registered with at least four polling stations in Pelalawan and Kuantan Singingi regencies must recast their vote after some of them were given the wrong ballot papers.
Pelalawan Regent HM Harris said voting at three polling stations in his regency had almost turned chaotic after residents became aware of the problem.
'The polling stations are located in Riau's third electoral district, but the available ballot papers contained the names of lawmaker candidates from Riau's fourth electoral district. It turned out that dozens of voters had voted using the wrong ballot papers,' he said, adding that it was the Pelalawan General Elections Commission's (KPUD) responsibility to schedule the revote.
In Yogyakarta, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has accused the Yogyakarta and Central Java KPUDs of violating human rights following their failure to facilitate thousands of university students and local residents in casting their votes.
'At Dr Sardjito General Hospital [RSUD], we found 401 patients and more than 1,000 accompanying family members who could not vote due to the absence of polling stations,' Komnas HAM commissioner Siti Noor Laila said in a press conference. 'The hospital management sent a letter to the local KPUD, but received no response by election day.'
Meanwhile in Jakarta, less than one quarter of the 3,656 inmates at the Salemba Penitentiary in Central Jakarta voted due to an outdated voters list that was based on the list of inmates in June 2013, penitentiary warden Abdul Karim said on Thursday.
'The majority of non-voters were not listed as eligible voters. This is because the KPU's [General Elections Commission] list represented inmates as of June 2013. As a result, only 808 inmates came to the eight polling stations we set up,' Abdul told The Jakarta Post.
He claimed that penitentiary officials submitted updated inmate data to the KPU every month. 'Our last submission was in February. If only the KPU used that data, the discrepancy might have been very small,' he said.
Inmate turnover at Salemba had been very high, said Abdul. 'Some have been released, many others were transferred to other penitentiaries,' he said.
Of the 808 voters, 253 voted for the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). The Gerindra Party came in second with 190 votes, followed by the Hanura Party and the ruling Democratic Party with 68 and 67 votes, respectively.
In East Manggarai regency, East Nusa Tenggara, the local KPUD said it had yet to receive vote recapitulation forms from the regency's 620 polling stations.
