However, the General Election Commission (KPU) was confident that voters would be adequately protected from transmission as they vote, as all the equipment needed for maintaining strict health protocols had arrived at the polling stations by Monday.

“As of 1 p.m. on Tuesday, progress in the distribution of health protocol equipment to voting stations has almost reached 100 percent. All of it should arrive today,” KPU commissioner Pramono Ubaid Tanthowi said on Tuesday.

“We hope the elections will be safe for voters and KPPS [polling station working committee] members alike.”

The 2020 regional elections might pale in comparison to the contest of two years prior, when some 73 percent of the total 152 million registered voters cast their ballots.

This year, around 100 million registered voters – around 40 percent of the entire population of 260 million – will elect nine governors, 224 regents and 37 mayors.

But this year’s polls will for the first time ever be held during a pandemic, which has prompted the election body to issue a string of health regulations for candidates, voters and election organizers at all stages of the elections.

On voting day, voters are required to wear masks at all times and must refrain from physical contact with others. Additionally, they can only enter the polling stations if they record a maximum body temperature of 37.3 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, KPPS members are obliged to install health protocol equipment on-site, such as handwashing stations and supplies of hand sanitizer.

The day before voting, Indonesia confirmed 586,842 COVID-19 cases.

Of the 309 cities and regencies holding the elections, 24 are in red zones, areas at high risk of COVID-19 infection. The remaining 237 are in orange zones, or moderate-risk areas, while another 42 are in yellow zones or low-risk areas.

Six more regions are in green zones, which are either unaffected by COVID-19 or have not recorded any new cases.

Logistical challenges abound

But distributing equipment nationwide has proven to be anything but a walk in the park, Pramono said, as KPU officials had to embark on arduous journeys just to hand out health equipment in the country’s remote regions.

At one point on Monday, East Java KPU officers were unable to deliver latex gloves to all the voting stations on Bawean Island, approximately 150 kilometers north of the mainland. The boat delivery had been disrupted by extreme weather conditions and high tide.

Election authorities eventually delivered the gloves using a chartered flight from nearby Gresik on Tuesday afternoon, just in time for the Sumenep regency election.

Another bump in the road for organizers, Pramono continued, was the search for replacements for polling station workers who had tested positive for COVID-19 just days before the elections.

The KPU plans to replace them with KPPS members previously assigned to other stations in the same region.

The commission is still counting the total number of election officials who have contracted the disease.

“Despite those challenges, we’re quite confident that voters will be able to exercise their rights and participate in our democracy without having to worry about contracting COVID-29,” he said.

However, the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) has said that health protocols were bound to be violated in the 1,420 voting stations nationwide. Many of the locations have failed to meet the required standards for maintaining health protocols, the agency said in a report released on Monday.

Some polling stations are situated in small and confined indoor spaces, which would force voters and KPPS members alike to neglect physical distancing rules.

“We, therefore, urge the KPU to relocate those voting stations to locations where health protocols can be exercised effectively,” Bawaslu member M. Afifuddin said Monday.

KPU eyes 77.5 percent turnout rate

The deaths of hundreds of polling station workers from apparent fatigue in the last general elections still cast a long shadow over Wednesday’s single-day contest.

Since May, civil groups and election activists have also been calling on the government to postpone the elections, concerned that they would result in poor outcomes on account of the predicted low voter turnout or rampant practices of vote-buying to lure people out to the polls.

KPU’s Pramono said he was confident that the enforcement of health protocols at voting stations would encourage voters to show up. The commission has even targeted a 77.5 percent turnout, higher than the 73 percent expected from the 2018 elections.

For its part, the public also seems to be willing to take the risk to use their vote.

On Sunday, Jakarta-based pollster Saiful Mujani Research Center (SMRC) revealed that 92 percent of respondents living in regions where an election is being held said they would cast their ballot on election day. The SMRC did not disclose the number of respondents who took the survey.

Meanwhile, the Saya Perempuan Anti Korupsi (I Am a Woman Against Corruption) antigraft movement has encouraged female voters to cast their vote and refrain from accepting gratuities from candidates. Women account for 50.2 percent of the total number of eligible voters in the 2020 election cycle.

However, some political experts still predict a low turnout.

Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Arya Fernandes projected that voter turnout could fall below 70 percent, a possible reflection of people’s priorities during the outbreak.

“Voter turnout in urban areas will most likely be lower than that in rural areas, simply because urban voters tend to be more aware of the dangers of the disease,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Regions gear up in their own way

In spite of the cool sentiment surrounding the novel coronavirus, many regions still welcomed the elections in a variety of ways, from tightening security to luring voters out with creative decorations and themes.

On Sunday, the East Sumba Police in East Sumba regency, East Nusa Tenggara, welcomed 100 personnel from the Central Java Police’s Mobile Brigade (Brimob) who will help maintain security on voting day.

In Surakarta, Central Java, organizers have decorated their polling stations based on various themes, ranging from anticorruption, health protocol awareness and even soccer in a nod to Indonesia hosting the U-20 Soccer World Cup for the first time in 2021.

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