Many election committees unleashed their creativity to encourage citizens to cast ballots and to make polling stations safer for in-person voting.

The Sekoto village election committee in Kediri regency, East Java, offered prizes to people who cast their votes in the Kediri regental election on Wednesday.

Sekoto village polling committee (PPS) head Nita Susanti said she had raised funds within her committee for the initiative in an effort to encourage voting in the regency, which had seen low participation rates in previous elections.

“We managed to raise over Rp 7 million (US$496.4) from all 98 members of the Sekoto PPS to buy the prizes,” Nita told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday morning.

The PPS gave away 27 household items at each of the 14 polling stations in the village. The items included brooms, tudung saji (traditional hemispheric lids), trash cans, umbrellas and plastic cookie jars, she said.

By about 09:30 a.m., Sekoto had recorded an average of 150 visits to each polling station. There are some 5,200 registered voters living in the village out of the 1.28 million eligible voters in Kediri.

Kediri has had a low voter participation rate over the years. In the 2010 regional election, only 65 percent of the voting population cast their vote. This decreased to 61 percent in 2015.

This year, Hanindhito Himawan Pramono, a 28-year-old businessman and the son of Cabinet secretary Pramono Anung ran unchallenged. He is set to win the election against formal abstentions in the uncontested race, securing more than 70 percent of vote samples, a quick count showed as of Wednesday night.

Several regions decorated polling stations in an effort to attract voters, and some poll administrators wore dressed up in costumes, including as medical workers.

In Menur Pumpungan village in Surabaya, East Java, organizers who were members of the Karang Taruna youth group dressed up as doctors, wearing white coats and stethoscopes.

“In addition to encouraging citizens to exercise their voting rights, we dressed up like this to remind residents that we are currently in a pandemic and must adhere to health protocols,” said Nur Rahmawati, the head of the local poll administrators (KPPS).

At the entrance of the polling station, the organizers installed a photo display with a tagline that read, “Even during the pandemic, I am not abstaining [from voting].”

By 11 p.m., about half of the village’s 423 registered voters had cast their votes.

A day before, the General Elections Commission (KPU) said it was confident that health protocols at voting stations would be sufficient to encourage strong voter turnout. The commission targeted a 77.5 percent turnout, higher than the 73 percent expected in the 2018 elections.

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

At a community unit (RT) in Banjarsari, Surakarta, Central Java, poll workers decorated the polling station as a COVID-19 referral hospital.

Strict health measures were enforced, and an ambulance belonging to the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) was prepared in case of emergencies.

“Although it’s unique, it seems terrifying because it makes you fear contracting the virus. But it has a good purpose: to remind people to always obey health protocols,” said Retno Wulandari, 23, a local resident.

At another RT in Banjarsari, election organizers decorated the polling station to resemble the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) office, complete with iron bars, and the organizers themselves wore orange uniforms bearing the words “not KPK prisoners”. The effort was made to commemorate International Anticorruption Day, which happened to fall on Wednesday as well.

In Joglo village, Banjarsari, a polling station was festooned with World Cup decorations. Surakarta will be one of the venues of the U-20 World Cup next year. (syk)