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Officials work overnight, fight fatigue to report, count ballots
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Night reader: A local poll administrator (KPPS) uses a smartphone to check ballots during the vote count on Wednesday at Lolu Utara, Palu, Central Sulawesi. The vote count ended past midnight. (Antara/Basri Marzuki)
M
any local poll administrators (KPPS) worked through the night counting votes for the presidential and legislative elections on April 17.
Khalid Syaifullah, the chief of a KPPS in Kuranji district in Padang, West Sumatra, told The Jakarta Post that neither he nor his team had slept in the last 29 hours as they had to finish counting votes and complete an election report.
“I haven’t slept a minute since I arrived at the polling station yesterday at dusk,” Khalid said on Thursday morning. “Hopefully, we will finish the report and submit it to the district election committee by 11 a.m.,” he said.
This is not the first time Syaifullah has carried out such an important task. The 40-year-old carried out tasks for the KPPS during the New Order regime.
The general election marked the world’s biggest one-day election. More than 190 million people were eligible to vote at more than 800,000 polling stations across the country, with 5 million people manning the polling stations to count and report the election results.
At least four people reportedly died during or after performing their duties. They are Agus Susanto of Malang, East Java, Deden Damanhuri from Purwakarta, West Java, as well as two officials from different districts in Tasikmalaya, also in West Java, Supriyanto and Jeje.
According to Syaifullah, among the obstacles in counting and reporting the election results were the difficulties incurred while checking the ballots. Some voters, he said, had not punched the ballots properly so the marks were not visible, which resulted in officials having to check each ballot thoroughly to avoid mistakes.
