Elections in Belgium

In May 2003, we will have our own national elections in Belgium. Of course, we do need a kind of computer system to centralize the results of the vote in one unique place monitored by government officials (clean civil servants, plus NGOs and representatives of political parties). Also, in all villages the elections will be run by local civilians appointed by the village mayor through a clean selection process that he is unable to control personally and solely.

Like Indonesians, Belgian people are obliged to vote, except if they have introduced a formal letter of duly motivated excuses to the mayor of their village, if they have a health certificate or if they have given a procuration to someone to vote for them.

When we enter the election bureau -- most often based in local schools -- these appointed civilians (our neighbors) are waiting for us to vote the whole day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., usually on a Sunday. There are also local political observers to check that everything is processed legally.

Then they have to count the ballots in each school and in each voting bureau located in these local schools. They do that under the observance -- not supervision -- of observers from all political parties. Of course, we only have seven to 10 political parties. That's already difficult enough to make a pertinent choice!

After one to two hours maximum, they send the overall results to the elections headquarters in Brussels. So, by 8 p.m. we already know the final result of the national elections since the liaison is very fluid with all the national TV stations and with all the press media. There is also absolutely no time to cheat anywhere in the process.

The process does not involve that much money, but requires the full support at the village level from local administrations, working hand in hand with civilians. And, of course, we do not need to buy a lot of PCs, since at the local level the use of PCs is not really needed. What we need to do is collect votes, count them and transmit the information to Brussels via telephone, fax or e-mail. The official confirmation of the results the next day goes through other channels such as the post office to our responsible elections authorities.

This is a clean, simple and cheap process that the Indonesian General Elections Commission seems to find impossible to put in place in Indonesia. Why?

YVAN MAGAIN, Tubize, Belgium