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Election revotes conducted in 23 provinces
What a waste: Workers prepare ballots and equipment for legislative election revotes in Tangerang, Banten, Friday
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What a waste: Workers prepare ballots and equipment for legislative election revotes in Tangerang, Banten, Friday. Voting in 27 subdistricts across Tangerang will be repeated this Sunday after officials found that ballots had been delivered to the wrong polling stations. (Antara/Lucky R.) (Antara/Lucky R.)
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span class="inline inline-none">What a waste: Workers prepare ballots and equipment for legislative election revotes in Tangerang, Banten, Friday. Voting in 27 subdistricts across Tangerang will be repeated this Sunday after officials found that ballots had been delivered to the wrong polling stations. (Antara/Lucky R.)
The widespread cases of switched ballot papers have forced a number of regencies and municipalities to arrange repeat voting in 23 of the country's 34 provinces.
General Elections Commission (KPU) commissioner Arief Budiman said on Friday that 590 polling stations in 90 regencies had suffered from switched ballots. He said he believed, however, that the number of provinces affected would not increase.
'If we look at the trend, it seems as though the number won't increase further,' Arief told reporters at the KPU's headquarters in Central Jakarta.
Another commissioner, Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah, said some revotes had already been conducted in a few provinces, while others would conduct their revotes on either Saturday or Sunday.
'It depends on the activities being carried out by the Regional General Elections Commissions [KPUDs] in those areas,' he said.
The provinces that are conducting revotes are West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Aceh, West Sumatra, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Lampung, Jambi, Bengkulu, Bangka Belitung, Riau Islands, Riau, Banten, Yogyakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), North Sulawesi and South Sulawesi.
Despite the occurrence of switched ballots in 23 provinces, Arief said the problem was not overly serious, as the number of polling stations affected was small in comparison to the total number of polling stations nationwide.
'It only amounts to 0.1 percent [of the total number of polling stations],' he said. 'Many of the provinces have just one regency or possibly only one polling station where switched ballots were found, such as Jeneponto regency in South Sulawesi.'
The province with the highest reported number of affected polling stations was West Java, with 285 polling stations in 17 regencies, according to Arief.
Responding to concerns that the revotes may affect voter turnout as well as the number of votes received by legislative candidates, KPU commissioner Hadar Nafis Gumay said that was a risk that had to be taken.
'If the number of voters [returning to polling stations to vote again] decreases, then so be it,' he said.
Hadar said the KPU would do its best to ensure there was no drop in voter turnout, however.
'We will try to encourage all eligible voters to revote. We will resend invitation letters to relevant voters so that the number of people casting their ballots is more or less the same,' he said.
According to Hadar, repeat ballots were the best way for the KPU to accommodate voters who wanted to vote in the election.
'Things would be far more chaotic if we didn't conduct the revotes,' he said. 'Legislative candidates have to be accorded the opportunity to be directly elected by the public.'
Arief gave his assurances that the revoting would not hamper the recapitulation process, saying that the KPU had instructed the relevant KPUDs to ensure that the repeat ballots in their areas were completed before the April 15 deadline.
'If they complete the process before April 15, then after the revotes have taken place, all the votes can be counted directly by the subdistrict polling committees [PPS] in line with the original schedule,' he said.
