Poll officials dazed by sluggish data entry

Poll officials dazed by sluggish data entry

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It will become more and more difficult for the General
Elections Commission (KPU) to continue making defensive
statements about the chaotic logistical distribution and the
unpreparedness of KPU's lowest-ranking officials working at
polling stations.

The sending of punched ballot papers from polling stations to
district poll committees proceeded very slowly on Tuesday,
sparking fears that the poll organizer (KPU) would not be able to
declare the final outcome of vote tally on April 26.

The sluggish forwarding was variously attributed to the lack
of skill of poll committees, misplacement of ballot papers and
geographical complications.

In the West Java capital Bandung, many committee members in
polling stations did not have enough know-how to input election
data into a voting summary document, which slowed down the
process of sending election data from polling stations to
district poll committees.

"Besides the lack of knowledge, poll committee (PPS) members
were also exhausted, as they had worked nonstop until Tuesday
morning," said Rohman Priatna, the chairman of Coblong district
election committee.

He continued that, due to the human resources problem, only
149 of 354 polling stations in his district had already sent by
Tuesday the punched ballot papers along with the summary
documents to the district election committee. The summary
documents provided a resume of the total votes collected by each
political party and candidates for the Regional Representatives
Council (DPD).

According to guidance from the General Elections Commission
(KPU), all the documents from polling stations had to be returned
to district poll committees by late Monday. The items have to
reach the central KPU by April 14.

Andri Kantaprawira, a member of the Bandung KPUD, confirmed
the hiccups, but quickly added that the KPUD had seven days to go
before it sent all ballot papers and summary documents to the
central KPU in Jakarta.

A similar problem could also be found in Papua province and
the East Java town of Jember.

In Central Java, many ballot papers had been interchanged
between one area and another, so the elections in some places
there had to be rerun. That certainly delayed the sending of
punched ballot papers from polling stations there to district
election committees, as happened in several towns in Central
Java, including Surakarta, Boyolali and Sragen.

Rerun elections also had to be held in several polling
stations on Tuesday in Surabaya for similar reasons.

In the North Sumatra capital, Medan, some 50 percent of 269
computers placed in regental or municipal KPUDs and district
election committees in the province were damaged because the
computers had been used by poll staffers to play computer games.

In the East Nusa Tenggara provincial capital, Kupang, only
three of 16 regental/municipal KPUDs had sent summary data to
East Nusa Tenggara provincial KPUD by Tuesday night. Robinson
Ratu Koreh, the chairman of East Nusa Tenggara KPUD, said that
the slow delivery of punched ballot papers and voting summaries
was caused by geographical problem.

"There are so many polling stations here located in remote
areas, it takes time for the documents to reach district election
committees and regental and provincial KPUDs," he said.