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.