T

he General Elections Commission (KPU) was disappointed with the abysmal overseas voter turnout Tuesday.

According to data from the KPU, the voter turnout in Hong Kong, where ballots were cast last Saturday, was less than 10 percent. From the 102,256 individuals included in the final voters list (DPT), only 5,919 showed up to cast their votes, at one of the 13 polling stations, in Hong Kong and 776 in Macau, the KPU said.

'It looks like many voters did not get the invitation letter to vote. Some did receive invitation letters from the Indonesian Consulate General [KJRI], but [they] were unaware of what it was for,' Elections Monitoring Agency (Bawaslu) commissioner Nelson Simanjuntak, who directly monitored the election in Hong Kong, said Tuesday.

Eventhough only 6,695 voters showed up at the Hong Kong and Macau polling stations, 16,000 had actually confirmed their intention to vote by post, according to the KPU.

Overseas Election Committee (PPLN) head Wahid Supriyadi, meanwhile, said that some individuals may have moved address, thus, hindering the dissemination of ballot day information.

Besides reasoning that many voters may not have received invitation letters, Nelson reflected, some may have refrained from voting because of a lack of information on the legislative candidates.

Furthermore, overseas voters could only vote for legislative candidates contesting in the electoral districts (dapil) of Central Jakarta and North Jakarta rather than the dapil in their respective hometowns, he further reasoned.

Nelson also cited logistical hindrances as having an adverse affect on voter turnout. He said that convicted Indonesians could not cast their votes as ballot boxes could not be used in Chinese penitentiaries, as the Hong Kong government had not issued the relevant permit.

Moreover, Nelson added, many Indonesian-migrant workers were not given permission from their employers to vote.

That said, he lauded the PPLN for sending permission letters to migrant-workers' employers in Mandarin.

Overseas voters seemed to be more interested in voting for president rather than House of Representatives (DPR) members, Nelson said. 'They actually ask 'when is the presidential election?'' he said.

Therefore, Nelson predicted that the overseas-voter turnout would see an increase for the presidential election.

KPU chairman Husni Kamil Manik said on Tuesday that the low voter turnout could be caused by the high mobility of Indonesian migrants from Hong Kong to Indonesia.

'Some of them [overseas voters] might have returned to Indonesia [to vote],' he told reporters on the sidelines of a forum at the Hotel Borobudur in Central Jakarta.

Husni also said that some of the eligible voters might not be included in the DPT.

'They could be voters who only recently arrived in Hong Kong [and, thus, were not registered],' he said.

Therefore, Husni said that the KPU would have to evaluate the number of migrant workers who traveled in and out of the country during the overseas voting period from March 30 until April 6.

Data from the KPU also shows that only 238 voters showed up to vote in Shanghai, China, compared to the area's registered 1,859 voters.

KPU commissioner Ferry Kurnia Rizkiyansyah said that the commission had not obtained data on the voter turnout in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Quito, Ecuador, where voting was carried out on March 31.