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Election commission seeks to woo voter participation
The Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) will seek to increase voter participation for the upcoming regional elections in February 2017
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he Jakarta General Elections Commission (KPUD) will seek to increase voter participation for the upcoming regional elections in February 2017. Voter participation was below target in the previous election.
KPUD head Sumarno said his commission was preparing some studies in order to learn about voter behavior in the city. His commission planned to research the reasons why voters did not participate in the previous elections and how to tackle this problem.
'The study results will be used as a foundation in building up policies to increase voter participation,' he told The Jakarta Post after a discussion at the Jakarta Legislative Council headquarters in Central Jakarta on Tuesday.
According to a KPUD report, voter participation reached just 72.3 percent for the Presidential election and just 66.5 percent for the legislative election. The commission's target was 75 percent for both elections.
'We tried various types of strategies but still could not increase the participation rate,' Sumarno said.
He said that they had to take the issue of low voter participation seriously because the election cost was so high. According to the General Election Commission report, the Jakarta KPU spent Rp 190.5 billion (US$13.9 million) out of the Rp 10.1 trillion spent nationally on elections in 2014.
Sumarno said that the Jakarta KPU was currently preparing different approaches to be applied to different segments of society to woo them to participate in the upcoming regional election.
'For example, for voters with low education levels, a good approach might be to provide them with entertainment such as live music near a voting booth,' he said. 'There might be different approaches for voters with higher education levels. We are thinking about that now.'
The Jakarta commission is also thinking about ways to tackle issues related to residents of Jakarta who often move from one place to another within the city.
'When we register their names they are living in one place but when we visit them again to verify their address, they have already moved to another place,' he explained, adding that such voters normally lived on disputed land.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Jakarta KPU revealed a study analyzing voter participation in Central Jakarta. The commission chose Central Jakarta as a sample because it was the area with the lowest recorded participation rate in the city during the presidential election last year.
According to the study, which was conducted from April to July this year and involved some 450 respondents, the most common reason people did not cast their vote was because they were not registered at their nearby polling station. The second most common reason for a lack of participation was the existence of unfriendly election officers. A lack of spare time registered as the third most common reason.
The study suggests that the commission should seek to increase awareness in society about the schedule and rules of elections. It also urges the commission to train its officers to be professional and friendly to voters.
'The commission should also increase voter awareness through political counseling,' the study's presenter, Wahyu Dinata, said.
The study also revealed that most voters participated not because of political awareness but rather because of other factors such as an invitation from election officers.
'Many say that city residents are rational voters, but the study shows otherwise,' Wahyu said. (saf)
