Many voters know the right way to cast vote: Survey

Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta

A survey revealed on Friday that fears of millions of spoiled ballots due to the public's unfamiliarity with the new electoral system may have been overstated.

According to the survey, 74 percent of the 1,250 respondents across the country claimed that they had perforated both one political party symbol and the name of one candidate on April 5.

Ahead of polling day, many had suggested that the established parties that are familiar to the public would benefit from the new Election Law, which says that punching only the party symbol, as in earlier elections, would also be valid.

"One thing that concerned all of us before the April 5 election was the possibility of a high number of spoiled ballots due to a lack of information about the election," Yanti B. Sugarda, the managing director of a marketing and social research body, the Polling Center, said on Friday.

"But this survey showed that voters knew how to perforate the ballot papers correctly."

The poll was held by the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) and the Polling Center between April 7 and April 14.

Surveyors said the respondents reflected the composition of male and females in the population, rural and urban voters, and the populations of the country's provinces.

Ninety-five percent of the respondents said they voted, despite the finding by election monitoring bodies across the country that the turnout of over 147 million registered voters amounted to less than 95 percent. Official voter turnout figures are not yet available.

The survey suggested progress regarding voter knowledge. Before the April 5 election, the IFES conducted nine interview- based surveys with samples ranging between 1,000 and 2,000 respondents to gauge their knowledge of the new system.

In early February, for example, the IFES survey found that only 19 percent of voters said a valid vote was one where the voter perforated both the party symbol and the name of his preferred candidate.

In the new survey, 75 percent of respondents said the legislative election was relatively fair and honest; six percent said it wasn't really fair and honest, two percent said it was thoroughly unfair and dishonest, 11 percent said it was quite fair and honest, while six percent said they did not know.

Eighty-six percent of the respondents said they would accept the election results if election monitoring institutions deemed the election to be free and fair.

Regarding the experiences of voters on polling day, 53 percent of voters said their fingers were checked by polling officials when they entered the polling stations; and 99 percent of them said their fingers were marked with indelible ink after voting, as required by the law.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents also said that polling station officials explained the voting process to them.

Regarding the presidential election, 85 percent of respondents said they believed that the July 5 election and the possible run off would be held in a free and fair manner.

However, only 67 percent of respondents said they had heard of the General Elections Commission (KPU), the body in charge of the overall electoral process.

Of the respondents who had heard of the KPU, 67 percent believed the poll body was uncontaminated by corruption, collusion and nepotism.