KPK Proposes E-Voting for Elections to Prevent Fraud and Reduce Costs
JAKARTA - The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is pushing for the implementation of an electronic voting system, or e-voting, in General Elections (Pemilu) to prevent fraud and reduce the massive costs incurred by political parties.
Head of the Law Enforcement and Politics Task Force at the KPK’s Monitoring Directorate, Kiagus Ibrahim, stated that e-voting could serve as a solution to cut election expenses, as one of the largest costs for political parties in winning elections is the expense for witnesses at polling stations.
“One party complained that they could prepare funds of around Rp 1.2 trillion, which is enormous. This is what must be borne by the members participating in the elections,” said Kiagus during a public discussion at the Bawaslu RI Building in Jakarta on Wednesday (6/5/2026), quoted from Antara.
He explained that for one election, political parties must deploy one to two witnesses in various regions.
The deployment of witnesses can inflate costs because each witness is paid around Rp 250,000.
According to the KPK, witness costs can be eliminated by implementing an e-voting system.
“We surveyed Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta. There, village head elections were conducted, but don’t think village heads are few. One sub-district there, called Caturtunggal Sub-district, has 70,000 households,” said Kiagus.
“Imagine 70,000 for one area like that; the data we have is equivalent to that in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, eastern regions. That means one village in Sleman can conduct elections electronically,” he continued.
“This is automatic counting at the site. So, it’s just clicks, and the summary is immediate,” said Kiagus.
Meanwhile, he also revealed that fraud can occur during manual vote counting by manipulating vote tallies, as found by the KPK during the rerun regional head election in Bangka Regency in 2024.
“What is the end of this? The motive is giving money, so money politics. For that, we recommend that elections be conducted at least gradually in certain regions to carry out digital voting,” said Kiagus.