KPU has slim change of beating deadline for announcing results<\/p>\n
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The General Elections Commission (KPU) has only a slim chance of
\nmeeting its April 30 deadline to announce the official results of
\nthe legislative election, as only 91 of the 440 local-level KPUDs
\nhave delivered their results.<\/p>\n
The documents from the 91 KPUDs were undergoing verification
\nbefore the final result in each regency is given to political
\nparties for their approval, KPU member Rusadi Kantaprawira said.<\/p>\n
The manual counting, not the electronic tallying, is the basis
\nof official results. KPU officials said the body would up its
\nefforts to announce final seat numbers won by political parties
\nin legislative bodies by April 30.<\/p>\n
The KPUDs' deadline to deliver data to the KPU is April 21,
\nand it faces more questions about its credibility on the heels of
\nan embarrassing hacker attack on its website on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Police are investigating the incident in which political
\nparties' names were changed into humorous ones at 6:40 p.m. on
\nSunday, until the website returned to normal at 10:40 p.m.<\/p>\n
The KPU's failure to train lower level election officials has
\nbecome more evident with the approaching deadline.<\/p>\n
While a KPU circular had required KPUD officials to type in
\ntallying results in the Excel software program, \"Some KPUDs
\nsubmitted only hand-written ballot counting results and others
\ntyped the ballot counting into computer programs, but not into
\nExcel,\" Rusadi said.<\/p>\n
The KPU had earlier said the general results of the April 5
\nlegislative election, including invalid votes and voter turnout,
\nwould be available nine hours after the elections, based on
\ntechnical calculations.<\/p>\n
Two weeks after the election, voter turnout and invalid votes
\nremain unknown.<\/p>\n
\"So far, all we can see is that some 460,000 of about 580,000
\npolling stations have transferred the (results of) ballot
\ncounting to the KPU, so we can only know the total number of
\nvalid ballots from the 460,000 polling stations,\" KPU IT team
\nhead Akhiar Oemry told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the display of computerized ballot counting at the
\nBorobudur Hotel will be closed on Monday evening, the day the
\ncontract for the display ends.<\/p>\n
Oemry said data on invalid votes \"might be available at the
\ndata center, but not on the website.\"<\/p>\n
\"But we will continue the computer-based ballot counting and
\nannounce the final result on the KPU website\" despite the end of
\nthe display, he said.<\/p>\n
The electronic tallying in KPU's website has raised an uproar
\namong some political parties, most who have polled worse than
\nexpected. Critics have pointed out to some Rp 200 billion spent
\nfor establishing the computer-based ballot counting, including Rp
\n152 billion for the procurement of computer hardware and
\nsoftware.<\/p>\n
Without mentioning figures, KPU deputy chairman Ramlan
\nSurbakti indicated voter participation this year was lower than
\nthat in the 1999 election, largely because registered voters did
\nnot receive voter cards or spoiled their ballot papers. A
\nsignificant percentage of potential voters remained unregistered.<\/p>\n
As of 10:20 p.m. Sunday, the KPU computer ballot counting had
\ncounted 91,008,865 votes or just 61.7 percent of the total
\nregistered voters.<\/p>",
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