KPU system held responsible for tardy vote count

JAKARTA (JP): With no end in sight to the vote tally, telecommunications experts have blamed the system deployed by the General Elections Commission (KPU).

A telecommunications expert from Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University, Roy Suryo, said the data processing system used by KPU was flawed.

"The problem lies with the Centralized Network System used by KPU to obtain poll results from the polling places nationwide," he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said with the KPU system, results from all polling places were transmitted hierarchically before arriving at the KPU's data center.

"Results from the polling places must go through the subdistrict stations, the regency stations and then be tabulated at provincial stations before they can be downloaded at the data center."

The hierarchical process of data transmission has created a long queue of customers, including KPU officials, observers, journalists and the public, eager to secure access to the poll results, he said.

Roy said the long queue of customers could have been averted if KPU had chosen a modern data processing system.

"Technically speaking, the Centralized Network System is already out of date. A modern system that can solve the queuing problem is the Distributed Network System."

He said the distributed system eliminated the current system's glitches, including the long queue of customers to access the poll results, as results could be obtained from several servers provided by the system.

Protracted waiting times could also be avoided as people could access the information from all over the world, he added.

Sudjana Sapi'ie, the executive director of the Rectors Forum, a local poll watchdog, blamed the slow tally on the processing system.

"Transmission of the poll results must go through bureaucratic procedures before they can be accessed in the data center," he said.

However, he said, the slow tally could also be caused by the "hierarchical" verification mechanism at every level of data transmission.

"We must admit that caution, though implicating slow data transmission, must be maintained in a bid to make sure the election is honestly and fairly organized," he said.

Basuki Suhardiman, the man in charge of the computer network at the Rectors Forum had said it would have been better to use the network of PT Telkom which reaches regencies.

Director of Operations of the Australian Electoral Commission Ross Mackay, at the opening of the media center last month, said the center would receive results from Indonesian electoral officials at 4,000 subdistricts and would process the information as soon as it was received.

He said votes must be counted at each of the 250,000 polling places, and the results are taken to villages for collation before being transmitted to subdistricts for further matching.

He said results would be transmitted to the center by facsimile or by phone, including cellular phones, and by single side band radios in some isolated areas. All the data was to be keyed into 60 computers using an election results program developed specifically for the election, he said.

"Although the results will be made available as they are received, significant quantities of data will not be available until 24 to 36 hours after the voting stops on June 7," he said at the time.

Senior Media Advisor of the International Foundation for Election Systems Hank Valentino, said Wednesday that the slow process was because of necessary verification of data.

He had said at the opening of the center last month that the official tabulation process would begin by counting at each polling place. The information would then be delivered to each higher level for consolidation and transmission.

He said the scheduled release of the official results was June 28 for regency legislative councils, July 1 for provincial legislative councils and July 6 for the national House of Representatives (DPR). (43/imn)