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East Jakarta poll workers fired for tampering with ballots
The dismissed poll workers reportedly told the KPU that they had tampered with the ballots to boost the voter turnout figure in their final report and claimed to have no political motives for the illicit act.
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Local poll administrators count votes for the Jakarta gubernatorial election at a polling station in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, on Nov. 27, 2024. More than 8 million voters were registered for the 2024 gubernatorial election in the capital city, although only 57 percent of them showed up at polling stations on voting day, according to the research arm of Kompas daily. (Antara/Aprillio Akbar)
The East Jakarta office of the General Elections Commission (KPU) has dismissed the head poll administrator and a security officer of a polling station in Pinang Ranti subdistrict, East Jakarta, after they were reportedly caught tampering with unused ballots for the Jakarta gubernatorial election.
On Wednesday, the polling station head instructed the station’s security officer to mark and cast unused ballots during their lunch break, around noon, according to the KPU. The polling station was open from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. for voting.
Nineteen ballots were found to have been tampered with, with one already placed in the ballot box. All the ballots were marked for the same candidate pair, although authorities did not specify which one.
Three candidate pairs ran in the Jakarta gubernatorial election: former West Java governor Ridwan Kamil and his running mate Suswono; independent candidate pair Dharma Pongrekun and Kun Wardana; and former cabinet secretary Pramono Anung and his running mate Rano Karno.
The local office of Elections Supervisory Board (Bawaslu) found out about the incident and stopped the 18 other fraudulent ballots from being placed in the ballot box.
“We have fired them as of today because they have committed a serious violation of the code of ethics,” East Jakarta KPU commissioner Rio Verieza said on Thursday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Read also: Jakarta, regions see historically low voter turnout in local polls
