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Jakarta Post

Thinking outside the box

Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, February 14, 2019

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Thinking outside the box A General Elections Commission (KPU) officer prepares ballots and ballot boxes in Maluku to be distributed throughout the province. (kompas.com/-)

W

hen news broke about floodwater that damaged thousands of ballot boxes in the West Java town of Cirebon on Tuesday, critics feared that their doubts over the General Elections Commission’s (KPU) decision to use cardboard polling equipment were proven right.

It was not the first time that ballot boxes had succumbed to the rain. In December, over 2,000 ballot boxes were destroyed when a flood hit the Bali regency of Badung, while in Yogyakarta 70 ballot boxes got soaked during delivery.

Many, including the campaign teams of the two presidential candidates, raised their eyebrows when the KPU, with the approval of the House of Representatives, opted for cardboard duplex in place of aluminum boxes, which had been in use since 2004. KPU chairman Arief Budiman said cardboard duplex was not only waterproof but could also withstand a load of up to 70 kilograms. 

More importantly, the policy helped the KPU save 70 percent of the money allocated for production of over 4 million ballot boxes prepared for the April 17 legislative and presidential elections, amounting to Rp 950 billion (US$67.85 million).

The KPU claimed to have conducted test trials on the cardboard boxes. The poll organizers had used cardboard ballot boxes in some polling stations where aluminum boxes were absent in the 2014 elections and few, if any, made a fuss of it.

There are no strong grounds to distrust the elections administration or even the whole process of elections simply because of the damage to a few thousand out of millions of ballot boxes. In fact, cardboard ballot boxes have been used in elections overseas, such as in South Africa and Australia.

What happened in Cirebon and Badung was a matter of poor management, as the local poll committees ignored the standard procedure for storing ballot boxes. This should teach a valuable lesson to other election committees in flood-prone areas, in particular because the rainy season will not end anytime soon.

However, the KPU cannot turn a deaf ear to the public’s concern about the security of their cast ballots, because they know every vote counts. The KPU is right in arguing that poll rigging has nothing to do with the use of cardboard or aluminum boxes, but people will find it difficult to believe in the poll commission’s capability to protect their right to vote if it fails to keep its ballot boxes and other poll materials safe.

For the sake of legitimate elections, the KPU needs to seek every path to make sure no more ballot boxes are damaged as a result of negligence until all the ballots are counted. The measures will include safe delivery of the boxes carrying ballots, particularly if they have to cross rivers and seas. But in the future, to address budget constraints and security concerns, Indonesia should think about adopting digital voting, in which ballots and boxes are no longer needed. If we can hold an easy and efficient election, why not?

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