E-Voting and the Future of Elections

Some time ago, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) encouraged the use of an electronic voting system, or e-voting, in future General Elections (Pemilu). The reasoning is to prevent fraud and reduce costs incurred by political parties. As an idea and an effort to improve electoral quality, this notion needs to be explored further amid the ongoing deliberation of revisions to the election law in the House of Representatives (DPR).

The use of e-voting is not new in electoral practice across various countries. Looking back at the history of e-voting in different parts of the world, for example, the United States and India have used it in their elections, with various problems.

In the Indonesian context, based on Ministry of Home Affairs data, from 2013 to 2020, there were 1,572 villages across 23 regencies that held village head elections using e-voting. Some areas that implemented e-voting include Sleman, DI Yogyakarta; Mojosongo, Central Java; Barito Kuala, South Kalimantan; and Bantaeng, South Sulawesi.

From this data, we should be optimistic about using e-voting in upcoming elections. Because, factually, there are advantageous benefits when we use e-voting in the voting and counting process. Firstly, the use of technology will be able to minimise invalid ballots. For example, in the 2024 presidential election, invalid ballots totalled 4,194,536, and in the legislative election, the figure was even more staggering at 15,883,845 invalid ballots (KPU data).

This does not yet include damaged ballots and incorrectly punched ballots. This means that with technological intervention through e-voting, we can eliminate invalid ballots, damaged ballots, and incorrectly punched ballots.

Secondly, if we learn from the 2024 election experience, one cause of the many repeat votes (PSU) during the count was people who were not entitled to vote at that polling station (TPS) but were given the opportunity by officers to vote. With technology in the voting process, a person not registered at that TPS will automatically be rejected by the system, even if given the chance by the TPS officer. This means that with e-voting, we can close the loophole for repeat elections caused by people using their voting rights at a TPS where they are not registered.

Then, the question is, is e-voting, with its various benefits and many successful village head elections using it, already relevant for use in future elections? This is certainly not an easy question to answer simply, because elections are not just about punching a ballot in the booth. The use of e-voting must consider various aspects that are real challenges in our current elections. We must not let its implementation fail to solve the problems that often occur during the voting and counting process.

Strengthening TPS

The most substantial benefit of using e-voting is to make voting and counting simpler and cheaper. However, the reality is that changing the method from conventional punching to technology is not as easy as imagined. Many things must be considered, for example, public trust regarding the technology used (the Netherlands case), elderly voters who tend to dislike using technology (the United States case), and our society’s knowledge of how to operate it, all remain challenges. We must avoid mass voter assistance at the TPS due to a lack of understanding of how to operate the technology, especially in rural and remote areas.

Factually, even in the 2024 election using conventional paper ballots, we still found many people who had difficulty punching the ballot. Therefore, strengthening the ability to operate e-voting among the Polling Station Working Committees (KPPS) as the spearhead of election implementation is a must, because they are the front line in operating e-voting technology at the TPS.

The basic premise is that the election is the process at the TPS. If the TPS process is complete, then 90 per cent of the election implementation is complete. In fact, if we look at the Constitutional Court’s rulings on disputes in the 2024 election, most of the election disputes granted by the Constitutional Court were problems at the TPS, for example, orders for vote matching, ballot recounts, and repeat voting.

This means the use of e-voting must be accompanied by superior quality from the front-line election administrators (KPPS). Using e-voting coupled with capable ability will not only make elections simpler and cheaper but also become a bulwark to reduce result disputes at the Constitutional Court.

Monitoring the Voting and Counting Process

The case of the Netherlands, which discontinued the use of e-voting because it was deemed potentially susceptible to manipulation of election results, must be a lesson before we genuinely use e-voting as a tool to convert votes into office.

One of the important things before using e-voting is how to access monitoring of the election process and results. Public access to information about the election process and results is the most important part of realising transparency and maintaining public trust in electoral integrity.

Monitoring access for the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), political parties, and the public is the key to ensuring the purity of the vote and that the results can be accounted for. Monitoring access is a challenge in implementing e-voting, because public trust in election results is the main requirement for the acceptance of vote counting by technology.

Technically, there must be a mechanism regulating how Bawaslu, political parties, and the public monitor the electoral process and results. It must be acknowledged that one factor in the success of elections so far is the involvement of all parties in monitoring from the TPS up to the tiered plenary sessions. Caution in implementing e-voting is important so that the use of technology truly safeguards electoral integrity.